The Black Arts Movement Wish List

1. Black Arts Movement Districts established nationwide in each city with large populations of North American Africans. BAM chief architect, Amiri Baraka (RIP), called for the BAM tour to include 27 cities with large populations of North American Africans.

2. A community/corporate sponsorship of the Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour. Government agencies should support BAM as well, with the understanding that we are and shall remain artistic freedom fighters!

A Poetic Moment, Marvin X and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf at Black Arts Movement 50th Anniversary Celebration, Feb. 7, 2015.




 Mrs. Gay Plair Cobb, Marvin X, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, Laney College President Elnora T. Webb, Dr. Nathan Hare, Paul Cobb
photo South Park Kenny Johnson

3. A BAM Endowment Fund  for veteran BAM artistic freedom fighters without basic survival funds. FYI, BAM/Black Power activists were patriots who believed in the values of American democracy. We believed in the American revolution. We quoted the US Constitution in our raps and principles. We believed in the consent of the governed, yet we suffered taxation without representation. We suffered a military defeat by the US Government. We hereby call upon all veterans of the US military to connect and support the BAM/Black Power veterans, especially those in need. We call on Black military veterans to reach out and touch the soldiers in America's domestic war against the freedom and independence of North American Africans, e.g., Black Panthers, Nation of Islam, Socialists, Communists, Liberation theologists and others. Now there are some who completely missed the 60s. They are like the girl who said Wake up to what? Poor girl doesn't even know she's sleeping. But US military veterans, reach out and touch your brothers in the war for freedom in America.

4. A BAM House in every North American African city. A separate house for men, women and youth in the BAM tradition. House can serve as a recovery center for those artists suffering from the addiction to white supremacy. BAM housing should be owned by a Land Trust. As per elder housing, they should be given the Life Estate to the space they inhabit, wherein they hold title to the property for natural life. Upon their transition to the ancestors, the title reverts to the Land Trust. On the general societal level, we think the Life Estate can end homelessness overnight in America. Of course, case management of many residents may be in order since many suffer traumatic slave syndrome, unresolved grief and communal amnesia, although Dr. Nathan Hare says it is not amnesia because they never knew, therefore they cannot suffer amnesia. Domestic colonialism severed the umbilical cord except for deep structure DNA residue. We know the ritual but not the myth, we beat the drum but don't know the rhythms as divine movement. How many of us recall the musical culture of Mali as origin of the Blues, especially in the Mississippi Delta. The Malian musician Ali Farka played with BB King and the Rolling Stones but he said he was not playing Blues. His music is from a ten thousand year old mythology, aboriginal and Islamic. Sorry we diverted from the housing issue but we must also address the dire mental apparatus that must be restored so the oppressed can regain their mental equilibrium as Dr. Hare notes. One project we have is the How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy mental health peer group facilitated by Dr. Nathan Hare and Suzzette Celeste, MPA, MSW. They recently conducted a session at the Black Arts Movement 50th Anniversary Celebration on Feb. 7, 2015, Laney College, Oakland.



5. A BAM Union of Artists, modeled on the National Writers Union. Union will offer health and life insurance for all members. Please comment on the NWU model. Do you suggest we reinvent the wheel?

6. A general fund.

Want to help? Contact: Marvin X, BAM 27 City Tour, 510-200-4164, jmarvinx@yahoo.com
Please send a generous donation to the BAM 27 City Tour, 339 Lester Ave. #10, Oakland CA. 94606. Your donation can be tax deductible. BAM 27 City Tour co-planner, Paul Cobb, Publisher of the Post News Group in Oakland, suggests 100 people donate $100.00 in each city. This would go a long way to making the BAM 27 City Tour happen in your city. Set up a planning committee in your city, secure donations, grants. I will help you plan the BAM 27 City Tour for your city. Each city must have the participation of local artists, after all, BAM was local as well as national. Each city had their little Black theatres, some funded but mostly unfunded but were able to do productions as they were able. This was certainly true for Black Arts West Theatre, San Francisco. We got no grants. The Bay Area Black bourgeoisie did not support BAM until we established Black House with Eldridge Cleaver. They supported Black House because we had a celebrity in da house. Eldridge released his best-seller Soul on Ice while at Black House.  Today, we again call upon the progressive Black bourgeoisie to support the Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour.

collage by Adam Turner of the BAM Poet's Choir and Arkestra performing at the Malcolm X Jazz/art fest, Oakland, 2014

Ossie Davis, Dr. Nathan Hare, Bobby Seale, Dr. Carlton Goodlett

Artists Dewey Crumpler, Arthur Monroe; poets Ishmael Reed, Conyus, Marvin X, Al Young
photo Tennessee Reed

Sonia Sanchez, Lakiba Pittman, Kim McMillan, Marvin X

BAM Black Women's panel: Elaine Brown, Halifu Osumare, Judy Juanita, Portia Anderson, Kujichagulia, Aries Jordan, Marvin X

Marvin X and oldest daughter Nefertiti on the BAM/Black Power Babies panel, Laney College

Kujichagulia and daughter Taiwo on the BAM/Black Power Babies panel at Laney College

Oba Serjiman Olatunji of the African Village, Sheldon, SC. Ancestor Olatunji single handedly brought African consciousness and dress to Harlem, NY. He spread the Yoruba religion in Harlem. He married Amina and Amiri Baraka. BAM owes cultural consciousness to Oba Serjiman Olatunji. Ase'.

MX and Baba Lumumba, Washington, D.C.

Bobby Seale and Marvin X, BAM/Black Power activists

Students of Marvin X, President Davis and Rashid Shabazz at Sankofa Bookstore, Washington DC

Judy Juanita, BAM poet/activist/professor

Paul Robeson, the Supreme artistic freedom fighter

Ras Baraka, Mayor of Newark, NJ, son of Mrs. Amina and Mr. Amiri Baraka

Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale

West coast BAM divas: Tureada Mikel, Michelle LaChaux, Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, Tarika Lewis

BAM Master poet Askia Toure'

Queen Sonia

AB in San Francisco at his 75th birthday party, Fillmore Jazz Heritage Center

AB in his living room (RIP)

Mayor of Newark, NJ, Ras Baraka

BAM actor Danny Glover

BAM Master poet, Amiri Baraka (RIP)

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and President Barakh Obama

MX and Nuyorican poet Nancy Mercado

Langston Hughes, The Master

Henry Grimes, The Great!

Harlem reception for Marvin X at the home of Rashidah Ishmaili

Sonia Sanchez, Queen of BAM

Jayne Cortez and Amiri Baraka (RIP)

MX and Paradise Jah Love

BAM poets at NYU memorial for Jayne Cortez and Amiri Baraka: Felipe Luciano, Rashidah Ishamili; back row: Quincy Troop, Askia Toure, Marvin X, Sandra Esteves, Haki Madhubuti, Ted Wilson, Linton Kwesi Johnson

Marvin X, Jackson Royster (RIP) and Lumukonda at Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland in the Black Arts Movement District.

Umar bin Hasan and Abiodun of the Last Poets, BAM Masters

Dr. Cornel West jacked by NY pigs

Sonia Sanchez and Angela Davis

 

Maya Angelou (RIP)

 

The Wild Crazy Ride Called the Marvin X Experience coming to San Diego

 photo by Kamau Amen Ra

 photo Gene Hazzard

 Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, Marvin X and Hunia at the How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy Retreat, facilitated by Marvin X

 Marvin X with David Murray and Earle Davis at Oakland's Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, 2014

photo Gene Hazzard

 A few of Marvin X's thirty books

 Longtime friends, Angela Davis, Marvin X, Sonia Sanchez

Marvin X's one-man concert entitled The Wild Crazy Ride Called the Marvin X Experience will arrive in San Diego soon as final arrangements are made. Community Black Art groups will bring the poet to town. The poet will read from a variety of works, including poems, parables, fables, essays and plays during his concert, a separate project from the BAM 27 City Tour.
 

 The late critic, poet, novelist, professor Sherley A. Williams

The San Diego folks will work in partnership with BAM to make the 27 City Tour happen in their town. Many years ago, Marvin X was a Visiting Professor at the University of California, San Diego, invited by his late childhood friend, Professor Sherley A. Williams. Marvin suggested to the San Diego folks that the BAM Tour in San Diego should be in honor of BAM poet/critic Sherley A. Williams. Give Birth to Brightness was her critique of the Black Arts Movement. At Marvin's suggestion, Sherley also edited an anthology of the Journal of Black Poetry writings which she submitted to JBP publisher Jose Goncalves (Dingane) before making her transition. Her novel Dessa Rosa was featured on Oprah Winfrey.

To book Marvin X and/or the BAM 27 City Tour, call 510-200-4164. Send letter of invitation to jmarvinx@yahoo.com.

Peralta Colleges honors Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party; Bobby Seale honors Marvin X

 Black Panther Party co-founders Bobby Seale and Dr. Huey P. Newton

Tonight at Oakland's Marriott City Center, the Peralta Colleges Foundation honored one of their own, former Merritt College student Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, along with fellow student Huey P. Newton. Bobby Seale was ill, so he sent Virtual Murrell, another Merritt College student and first president of the Soul Students Advisory Council, that morphed into BSUs across America. The first thing Virtual Murrell read was a note from Bobby to let those in attendance know that the Soul Students Advisory Council began after a performance of fellow Merritt student Marvin X's (Jackmon) play Flowers for the Trashman. The anti-Vietnam play recruited students into the Black consciousness and activist movement at Merritt College. Marvin X stood at the $175.00 plate dinner, a benefit for the Peralta College Foundation that gives scholarships to needy students.


 Virtual Murrell, accepted award for Bobby Seale. Virtual was first president of the Soul Students Advisory Council that later became the BSU at Merritt.

Speaking for Bobby, Virtual also said Peralta College students and instructors must tell the true story of Merritt, not the watered down, Miller Lite version so often heard, although attendees did view a trailer of the award winning Peralta College TV documentary on Merritt College as the birthplace of the Black Panther Party and student activism, especially in the Bay Area.


Rt. Col. Conway B. Jones, Jr., Charles Brown, political activist (former student leader at UC Berkeley) and Marvin X

Marvin X's autobiography Somethin' Proper, narrates the student struggle at Merritt, one of the few sources on the history of the Black Arts/Black Power Movement, especially on the West Coast. Laney College Professor, Judy Juanita's novel, relates some of the history as well. See also the writings of Donald Warden of the Afro-American Association, the key organization that preceded the Black Panther Party and the Black Arts Movement on the West Coast and nationally.



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Marvin X and Paul Cobb have been friends since childhood in West Oakland

Ossie Davis, Dr. Nathan Hare, Bobby Seale and Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett

Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale and fellow Merritt College student, Marvin X, 1962-64. Bobby Seale performed in Marvin's Black Arts West Theatre before joining the Black Panther Party. He played a young revolutionary Black man trying to find himself in Come Next Summer, Marvin's second play.