Invitation to join BAM Speakers/Artists Booking Agency

Invitation to be listed as a speaker and/or artist with the BAM Speakers and Artists Bureau

Dear friends, fellow scholars, artists, activists
I have tentatively listed you as a speaker/artist

with our newly formed, 2017, BAM Booking Agency. We hope you will agree to a non-exclusive contract for speaking and/or performance engagements. Our commission is 30%. If you agree, you can let us know your requested fee. If you decline to be listed with us, let us know immediately and we will remove your name. If you are not listed and would like to be, please let us know at the earliest.

Sincerely,

Marvin X, planner

Black Arts Movement

Black Arts Movement Business District,

Oakland CA

510-200-4164

jmarvinx@yahoo.com

Black Arts Movement 

Dynamic Speakers and Artists

Askia Toure, poet/activist

BAM co-founder

  

Dr. Nathan Hare, father of Black and Ethnic Studies, San Francisco State University, Clinical Psychologist

Sonia Sanchez, poet, playwright, professor emeritus, Temple University, BAM co-founder

Alfie Politt, musician, arranger 

 

 Nikki Giovanni, poet, professor, BAM co-founder

Prosperity Carter, poet, motivational speaker

King Theo and the Samba Funk Band

 Eliott Bey, BAM master musician

Dr.Tony Montiero, former lecturer in Africana Studies at Temple University

Kathleen Cleaver, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, Professor of Law, Emory University

 Aries Jordan, poet, educator, BAMBD planner

 Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, poet, playwright, director,

producer, BAMBD planner

 

Have play will travel!

--Dr. Ayodele Nzinga

 

Have play will travel 

--don lacy

Umar Bin Hasan and Abiodun

The Last Poets

The Honorable Ras Baraka, Mayor of Newark NJ, son of BAM Chief Architect, Ancestor Amiri Baraka

The Black Arts Movement Poet's Choir and Arkestra

 Adam Turner, digital scientist, graphic designer, photographer

Janeael Peterson, model

Maestro Marvin X, David Murray, Earle Davis,

members of the Black Arts Movement Poet's Choir and Arkestra

Marvin X, BAM/BAMBD co-founder, poet, playwright,planner, activist, thinker
 "When you listen to Tupac Shakur, , E-40, Too Short, Master P or any other rappers out of the Bay, think of Marvin X. He laid the foundation and gave us the language to Black express Black male urban experience in a lyrical way!"--James G. Spady, Philadelphia New Observer

 THE BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT 

SPEAKERS BUREAU

BAMBDISTRICT@GMAIL.COM

                          510-200-4164

For the Women, a poem by Marvin X

 

Black Arts Movement artist Elizabeth Catlett 

For the Women by Marvin X

Women Writers Panel at Black Arts Movement 50th Anniversary Celebration, Laney College, Oakland, Feb. 7, 2015. L to R: Elaine Brown, Halifu Osumare, Judy Juanita, Portia Anderson, Kujichagulia, Aries Jordan. Standing: Marvin X, BAM producer
photo South Park Kenny Johnson

                                          For the Women

For the women who bear children

and nurture them with truth

for the women who cook and clean

behind thankless men

for the women who love so hard so true so pure

for the women with faith in God and men

for the women alone with beer and rum

for the women searching for a man at the club, college, church, party

for the women independent of men

for the women searching their souls

for the women who do drugs and freak

for the women who love only women

for the women who play and run and never show

for the women who rise in revolt in hand with men

who say never, never, never again

for the women who suffer abuse and cry for justice

for the women happy and free of maternal madness

for the women who study and write

for the women who sell their love to starving men

for the women who love to make love and be loved by men

for the women of Africa who work so hard

for the women of America who suffer the master

for the women who turn to God in prayer and patience

for the women who are mothers of children and mothers of men

for the women who suffer inflation, recession, abortion, rejection

for the women who understand the rituals of men and women

for the women who share

for the women who are greedy

for the women with power

for the women with nothing

for the women locked down

for the women down town

for the women who break horses

for the women in the fields

for the women who rob banks

for the women who kill

for the women of history

for the women of now

I salute you

A Man.

--Marvin X

How Marvin X would allocate the BAMBD Billion Dollar Trust Fund

Marvin X, the Black Arts Movement Business District co-founder and planner, suggests the BAMBD Billion Dollar Trust Fund would be allocated as follows:

$100 million for General Fund
$100 million for Five Year Plan
$200 million for mixed use rental housing (seniors, artists, workers, mentally disabled, recently incarcerated, single parents)
$100 million for mortgage loans, especially for purchase of modified SRO hotel rooms with life estate titles for the chronically homeless, thus ending homelessness overnight
$100 million for job training
$ 100 million for micro and macro loans to entrepreneurs
$100 million to establish the David Blackwell STEM Institute (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math)
$100 for land and real estate acquisition
$100 for reentry assistance to displaced former residents of Oakla

Notes on the Marvin X Tour of San Francisco on MLK, Jr. Holiday, 2017

After attending San Francisco's MLK, Jr. celebration at the Yebra Buena Arts Center, Marvin X gave a group of people a tour of San Francisco, beginning at Fisherman's Wharf. He noted that tourism is a multi-billion dollar industry in San Francisco, the most beautiful city in the world! Yet the only Black representation at Fisherman'se Wharf are brothers performing as robots covered in silver spray paint! "When I used to hustle here as a dope fiend in the 80s and 90s (true I used to make $400.00 per day selling the homeless paper at $20.00 per donation, and true the young brothers used to make $200.00 to $300.00 per day) but this doesn't compare to the billions other ethnic groups (Italian, Asian, Latino, et al.) make.

His tour then went to North Beach with its plethora of Italian restaurants. He recalled how he grew up in West Oakland with its plethora of Black owned businesses. He noted the history of the North Beach literary tradition with the Beatniks. He dropped his tour persons at City Lights Bookstore, after telling them it was the most important bookstore in the world. As per Black people, Marcus Books has that honor despite their Negrocities (Amiri Baraka term). 

He informed his tourists they would be leaving North Beach to enter China town, noting Stockton Street is the main street. As he drove down Stockton Street, he told her passengers to look at the bustling economic activity with stores packed with customers even unto the street. One passenger noted a Walgreen's but Marvin told her, "Yes, it's a Walgreen's but it's a Chinese Walgreen's! Another passenger noted the banks such as Wells Fargo. Again, Marvin X said, yes, but it's a Chinese Wells Fargo.

He departed Chinatown through the Stockton Street tunnel to arrive at the apex of SF's commercial shopping center, Union Square. He informed the passengers he used to control street vendors in Union Square like Malcolm X used to control Harlem. "At one point I had fifty mostly white vendors working under my non-profit papers in Union Square, making thousands of dollars per day. When the SFPD would demand their papers and the officers saw they were my papers, the SFPD officers would turn beet red in disgust that a "Nigger" had this much power in Union Square, as they said about Malcolm controlling Harlem, "That's too much power for a Nigguh." So the SFPD busted me on a daily basis at my own stand at Market and Powell, at the Cable Car turnaround. They came daily to harass me under the color of law but no lawyer would take on the SFPD. Their attorney, Laeewrence Wilson, told us in the recess of a court hearing, "If you beat us in court, we will go to the Board of Supervisors and change the rules," which he did, then later was busted for selling drugs out of his house, yes, the chief attorney of the SFPD, then died of AIDES after doing time in Vacaville State Prison!

I told my riders as we made a one block departure from North Beach to Chinatown, we were now making a one block move from Union Square to the infamous Tenderloin, San Francisco's multi-cultural ghetto of workers, dope fiends, sexual deviants and mentally ill, along with dealers, prostitutes, pimps and ho's from throughout the Bay Area.

I drove them by my beloved Glide Church and showed them the 16 Story building Cecil Williams got in a benefits package for the adjacent construction of the Hilton Hotel.

In spite of the TL's derogation, it has been the most successful district in resisting gentrification. Why, because the TL's non-profit organizations are unified, unlike the Fillmore, Hunters Point and Lakeview!

As it was approaching darkness and my vision was failing, I told my tourists we would resume the tour at a later date.

J. Douglas Allen-Taylor on Oakland's Black Arts District

IMAGINE A SPECIAL DISTRICT IN DOWNTOWN OAKLAND HIGHLIGHTING BLACK ARTS, BUSINESS, AND ENTERTAINMENT

A CounterPoints Column by J. Douglas Allen-Taylor

http://www.safero.org/counterpoints/counterpoints066.html

Suppose, just for the sake of discussion, that the City of Oakland decided to end its “benign neglect” of its rapidly-diminishing Black population and, instead, partnered with its Black citizens in an effort to help rebuild the economic foundation of that population, to highlight Black Oaklanders' history and many accomplishments within the city, and to give a needed boost to Oakland’s image and finances.

And suppose, again for the sake of discussion, that the population the city targeted in this speculative initiative included not only Oakland’s African-Americans but also its Africans, Afro-Caribbeans, Afro-Brazilians, and all other descendant populations from throughout the African Diaspora, all of whom have played or are playing an important role in creating the rich fabric of Oakland life.

What, do you imagine, might such an initiative look like?

Imagine for a moment that Oakland decided to set aside a special district in its downtown area designated specifically to highlight and promote African-American, African, and African-descendant arts, economics, and entertainment, similar to how the popular and highly-successful Chinatown and the Fruitvale district currently do for the city’s Chinese and Latino residents, respectively.

Imagine, further, that rather than restricting itself to one vision of Black life, the city allowed such a district to breathe such as what happens in New Orleans’ famous French Quarter, where a large number of disparate businesses and attractions and entertainments can all exist together and thrive under the broad banner of New Orleans culture.

Imagine that such a Black arts, business, and entertainment district became the location for a series of new and permanent public exhibits highlighting Oakland’s Black past, present, and future: exhibit sites dedicated to the Black Panther Party, for example, which attracted scores of residents and new visitors to the various 50th anniversary celebration events recently held in the city—to the Pullman porters and waiters, who formed the West Coast headquarters of the nation’s first African-American labor union and helped build Oakland’s Black middle class only a generation out of slavery—to Oakland’s homegrown Black sports figures such as light heavyweight world champion boxer John Henry Lewis, basketball legend Bill Russell, baseball star Frank Robinson, baseball labor pioneer Curt Flood, and world champion sprinter Jim Hines down through football great Marshawn Lynch and current boxing champion Andre Ward—to its incredibly rich Black music history from gospel to the blues to rhythm and blues through rap and hip hop—to its Black and African dance history and heritage from Ruth Beckford and Malonga Casquelord and its tap and jitterbug heritage down through current Afro-Caribbean-Brazilian groups such as SambaFunk! and African dance groups such as Dimensions Dance Theater, Diamano Coura, Fua Dia Congo and its ever-expanding collection of creative innovators such as turf dancers.

Imagine Black-themed murals throughout the downtown Oakland area, and—instead of the eyesore of so many vacant storefront windows in that area—filling those windows up with art, posters, and photographs highlighting Oakland’s Black and African presence and heritage.

Imagine visitors walking through massive arches spanning 14th street—similar to what we currently have in the Laurel District—set up over the entrance gateways to such a Black arts, business, and entertainment district at its western and eastern ends—the African-American Museum at Castro Street and the Lake Merritt Park gateway, respectively—as well as directly over the heart of both the city and the district at 14th and Broadway. Imagine such visitors walking or driving or tour-busing down 14th or through the side streets of the district, guided through the various points of interests by city-printed maps and interactive, gps-guided smartphone apps, or by city- or organization-sponsored tour guides.

Imagine a Black-themed downtown Oakland district becoming the glue that finally pulls together several nearby but currently-divided Oakland areas of public attraction: the newly-refurbished western end of Lake Merritt, the restaurants and other amenities of the uptown district, Chinatown, old Oakland, and Jack London Square.

Imagine downtown Oakland suddenly becoming a destination for Oakland residents for shopping and entertainment throughout the daytime and evening hours and the weekend, not simply to work in and then vacate at the 5 o’clock hour. Imagine retail businesses beginning to see downtown Oakland as a preferred location because of the increasing foot traffic, instead of as a pariah to be shunned. Imagine all of this coming about in large part because of the creation and presence of a Black-themed downtown district.

Imagine a partnership between a downtown Oakland Black-oriented historic district and the highly-successful, nationally-acclaimed Rosie The Riveter National Park and Visitors Center, which has helped bring acclaim and positive national attention to the City of Richmond, California, and which can certainly help do the same for Oakland.

Imagine such a district becoming the catalyst for a major round of Oakland festivals—music, dance, and literary—making the city one of the national centers for such gatherings.

Imagine the number of Black organizational conventions such a district would attract—the sororities and fraternities, the civil rights organizations, the professional and business associations, the educational and sports associations—because Oakland has long been considered one of the centers of innovative Black life and can provide a Black experience that is impossible to duplicate in most other areas of the country. All of these groups have money to spend, and could most certainly be induced by the presence of a downtown-area Black arts, business, and entertainment district to come and spend their convention money in Oakland.

Imagine the jobs and the tax benefits to the city that would accrue based upon the smart development of such a Black-themed downtown district, the proverbial rising tide that lifts all of Oakland’s boats.

Imagine that the institutional foundation of such a Black-themed arts, business, and entertainment district already exists within Oakland’s downtown core, with the presence in that area of such public and private institutions as Geoffrey’s Inner Circle, Joyce Gordon’s Gallery, the Oakland Museum, the Oakland Main Library, the Malonga Casquelord Center, the African-American Museum and Library, Laney College, and the soon-to-be-refurbished Kaiser Convention Center, all of which—to one degree or another—have been promoting Black and African culture in Oakland for years.

And now imagine, finally, that the Oakland City Council already took the step to set up such a district months ago, with city officials now working on the details, and that the State of California is ready to step in with state funding and to help generate private funding for such an effort.

Well, you don’t have to imagine the last part because actually, it’s already happened.

No. Seriously.

All that’s left is for us to fill in the details and get to work implementing the vision.

I’ll tell you more about it, next time we talk, with some ideas on how we—all of us—can help get this exciting proposed project from being merely a grand vision to becoming a great reality.

Now Available for Black History Month: Marvin X, Living History in Your Midst

Sunday, January 15, 2017

Now Available for Black History Month: Marvin X, Living History in Your Midst

A live dog is better than a dead lion!

Poet, playwright, educator, planner Marvin X, Emory Douglas, Black Panther Party Minister of Culture; comedian, playwright Donald Lacy; Civil Rights attorney, John Burris

photo Standing Rock

Marvin X reading from his play Salaam, Huey Newton, Salaam.

 He opened for Donald Lacy's play Color Struck

photo Alicia Mason

Tureada Miken, Judy Juanita, former editor of the Black  Panther Newspaper, Marvin X. Judy reminded Marvin and told the audience, she remembers Marvin X at Merritt College as skinny as a toothpick. Eldridge Cleaver described him as a skinny Black Buddha.

 Marvin X in Laney College Theatre dressing room, October 1, 2016, getting ready to go on stage. He taught drama at Laney College, 1981, produced his play In the Name of Love.

photo Standing Rock

 Nurjehan, friend and assistant to Marvin X

Marvin X at Oscar Grant Plaza, Oakland
photo Pendarvis Harshaw

Dr. Wade Nobles, former BPP  Chairwoman, Elaine Brown, and Marvin X

Black Arts Movement Business District artists at Oscar Grant Plaza, Oakland

Left to right: Elaine Brown, Dr. Halifu Osumare, Judy Juanita, Portia Anderson,Kujigulia, Aries Jordan, standing Marvin X, producer of the Black Arts Movement 50th Anniversary Celebration at Laney College, Oakland

Marvin at New York University memorial for Amiri Baraka and Jayne Cortez

Harlem, New York reception for Marvin X at home of Rashidah Ismaili, 2014

Marvin X and Nuyorican poet Nancy Mercado

Marvin X, grandson Jameel, Stanley Nelson, director of film Black Panthers, Vanguard of the Revolution, Marvin's daughter Amira Jackmon, Esq. and her daughter Naeema Joy

Marvin X, David Murray, Earl Davis, Val Serrant, Michelle LaChaux at Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, Oakland

Marvin X and Amiri Baraka (rip) in conversation at the Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2009

 

 January 14,2017

Marvin X notes on Ayodele Nzinga's play Mama at Twilight, Death by Love

Pierre Scott as Pappy, Stanley Hunt III as Son
photo Standing Rock

 Pappy and sons Kriss and Son

 Cat Brookas as Mama, Pierre Scott as Pappy
photo Standing Rock

Cat Brooks as Mama
photo Standing Rock

Ayodele Nzinga's play Mama at Twilight, Death by Love is a powerful family drama dealing with love, faith, belief, dreams and death. She has a cast of seasoned actors in our beloved social activist Cat Brooks as Mama, and seasoned actors Pierre Scott (Dad) and Stanley Hunt as Son. We also had excellent supporting actors in Noelle Guess as Tonya as and Julian Green as Kris.


 Cat Brooks as Mama and Julian Green as son Kris
photo Standing Rock

We must note the music of Sade as a liet motif or recurring musical comment on the theme. Sade's Soldier of a Love became a character and/or choral comment on the main action, constantly reinforcing the central theme of love. Nzinga grapples with love that approaches blindness and denial when the wife contracts HIV but never will admit she may have contracted it from her dope dealing, womanizing, convict husband. Her faith in him is so solid that she won't allow him to be tested. It is the daughter Tanya who finally confronts her dad with the possibility he may have contracted HIV from his frequent visits to prison. In this most poignant scene, son Chris acknowledges his gay identity and departs the household only to return after the transition of his mother. His return ends the play on a note of family unity, as in Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well! Or shall we go to Cheikh Anta Diop's theory of African tragi-comedy as the primary theme of African drama as opposed to tragedy as the major theme of Northern Cradle or European dramatic tradition. In the end, family love and unity puts Mama at Tw theilight, Death by Love in the African dramatic tradition.

As we know from her real life role as social activist against police terror, actress Cat Brooks has a powerful voice and her role as Mama revealed she can be sensitive and soft as the daughter Tanya described the feminine gender in her metaphoric delineation of male and female fruits, such as mangoes, pears, oranges, etc.

We have watched Pierre Scott perfect his acting skills in the ten-cycle plays of August Wilson that Dr. Ayodele Nzinga's Lower Bottom Playaz produced in chronological order. Alas, the Lower Bottom  Playaz is the only theatre group in the world to do Wilson's plays in chronological order. He is a seasoned actor whose every move is measured and timed to reveal character.

Now actor Stanley Hunt was born into the theatre of his Mother, Dr. Nzinga, thus he has been in theatre since childhood and knows how to measure his language, verbal and body language to reveal character.

We find it most interesting that the three children are artists: Chris, writer, Son, photographer, and Tonya,dancer. Thus, this play deals with artistic love as well. Son wins a photography grant, though his sister Tonya scolds him for focusing his camera on the breasts and behinds of her fellow dancers.  Tanya gives up her dancing to aid her mother. Kris reveals his writing and sexual identity transcends his family love until he returns home after the transition of his mother.

The set was dominated by Christian symbolism in sync with the Mama's Christian dominated religiosity that did indeed reach the pathological in her denial of her husband's possible infidelity that was challenged by Tonya as we noted above.


Noelle Guess as Tonya
photo Standing Rocki

Ayodele has written a powerful drama of North American African family life. I don't know how anyone in the Bay Area can avoid attending this drama at the Flight Deck Theatre, 1540 Broadway, downtown Oakland. The play runs from January 12 through 29, 2017.
www.lowerbottomplayaz.com
510-332-1319