Master Sun Ra, Marvin X and the Low Down Dirty Truth!

 Master Sun Ra, Marvin X and the Low Down Dirty Truth

Marvin X, Poet, Playwright, Producer and Master Sun Ra, Father of BAM and Afrofuturism

at Marvin X's Black Educational Theatre, San Francisco, 1972. Sun Ra and Marvin lectured in Black Studies at UC Berkeley, 1972. Black Educational Theatre was X's off campus classroom. At BET, Sun Ra and his Myth-Science Arkestra arranged music for X's Take Care of Business, performed at the Harding 

Theatre, a five hour concert without intermission, written, directed and produced by Marvin X, Music by Sun Ra, Choreographers Raymond Sawyer and Ellendar Barnes.

University of Chicago Sun Ra Conference on Astro Black Mythology and Black Resistance, 2015

Marvin X reading at University of Chicago Sun Ra Conference, 2015

photo Burrell Sunrise (Let us pray for him at this hour)

Symposium on Afrofuturism at University of Chicago, 2015

Sun Ra Arkestra at the SF Jazz Festival, under the leadership of Marshall Allen

photo Adam Turner

My beloved ancestor Master Teacher Sun Ra taught me, "The people don't want the truth, they want the low down dirty truth." He chided me, more specifically, chastised me, even better, gave me a verbal ass whuppin' when he arranged the musical version of my BAM classic Flowers for the Trashman, renamed Take Care of Business, see TDR, edited by Ed Bullins, 1968. But when Sun Ra and his Myth-Science Arkestra scored the music for Take Care of Business and I deleted a sex scene, Sun Ra gave me a verbal ass whupping. "Maavin, you so right you wrong. People don't want the truth, they want the low down dirty truth and you took it out when you removed that scene. Stop trying to be so right." And he had told me earlier in our artistic relationship from coast to coast, but especially when we came together in the Bay Area to teach Black Studies at UC Berkeley and when he performed the music for Take Care of Business at my Black Educational Theatre, San Francisco, 1972, "And stop teaching your actors that freedom, justice and equality. Don't you see they are free? Look how wild and crazy your actors behave. All them people teaching freedom, justice and equality are dead, don't you see that? Yes, they dead, all those talking about Civil Rights, all they got were Civil Rites, and we get Civil Rites at the cemetery, yes, your last rites! Don't you see what I teach my band? I teach them discipline, not freedom, discipline. So stop ruining your actors and dancers with that freedom mess. Teach discipline. How do you think I was able to keep my band together for all these years? Discipline!" I dearly love and respect my Master Teacher, but as I said at the University of Chicago Sun Ra Symposium on Afrofuturism, "Yes, Sun Ra was the master of discipline, yet he was simultaneously the freest creative spirit in the world."  Ironically, our dearly departed ancestor James Sweeney, Jr., said of myself, "Marvin X is the freest black man in non-free America." So I honor my mentor and associate Sun Ra for the wisdom he taught me as the grand master of the Black Arts Movement theatre. No one, in my mind, has come close to expressing the totality of the myth-ritual black arts movement theatre, not Amiri Baraka, August Wilson. Who encompassed music, dance, poetry, song, lights, sound, costume, ritual and myth, (Kemetic and scientifi, i.e., Afrofuturistic), than Master Sun Ra and his Myth-Science Arkestra that continues under the leadership of Marshall Allen, the 94 year old band leader?

If you caught the Arkestra's performance at the SF Jazz Center, you will admit Marshall Allen has taken the band to a higher level artistically, as per a tightened production with a higher level of costume design. Of course, the musician on the keyboards could not replace Master Sun Ra, but the overall performance indicated the Myth-Science Arkestra will indeed be around for Infinity. And for sure the band shall express the low down dirty truth of Master Sun Ra.

In truth, the Marvel film Black Panther, expressed Sun Ra's myth-science in the Hip Hop era, and let us not ignore the Afrofuturism of Octavia Butler, Mother of Afrofuturism. At the University of Chicago, the beautiful, highly intelligent women scholars educated me that Afrofuturism is the black term for the European term of science fiction. But as per my association with Sun Ra, Afrofuturism was not merely a linguistic matter but a functional matter in the deep structure of the esthetics of the North American African people.

--Marvin X

3/22/21

Great Black Writers from Fresno

 

Marvin X

Sherley Ann Williams

Toward the Independent Black Mind and Agenda

 Toward the independent black mind and agenda

Marvin X at the University of Chicago, 2015

photo Burrell Sunrise

My mentor, Ancestor Abdul Leroy James, used to say that we North American Africans have never enjoyed self determination or freedom of body, mind and soul. We have been proscribed by white supremacy thinking and actions. We don't know how to think as free human beings. I will add that until the black man and woman escape from the American plantation and enjoy being outside the big yard of the American Gulag, we are mental slaves, although our brothers and sisters suffer the same throughout the Pan African world. Imagine, when I was exiled in Mexico City and used to hustle books at the African and Caribbean embassies, the Jamaican diplomats told me they could not buy my black books because they couldn't take them home, even in their diplomatic bags. Did you hear what I said, they couldn't take black books home to a black nation if the books dealt with black consciousness. 

And my brothers at the Ghanian Embassy weren't much different. They tried to convince me they preferred dealing with the British colonizer rather than the Russians Kwame Nkrumah preferred. Thus they were happy when he was overthrown and the British returned with their neocolonial policies.

In the modern era, Ngugi wa Thian'go best deconstructs the trauma and linguistic crisis of the African and Pan African, but most especially the African who can't even think or write in his Mother tongue under the neocolonial regimes. Such regimes are so programmed that the Kenyan police sought to arrest the fictional characters in his novel because they imagined they were real and must be captured, but they did find Ngugi and his wife to imprison and torture as voices of the opposition. 

Let us have no illusion about a black or African face political leader, whether in African, the USA or the Caribbean, they are the same, white men in black face. I had to apologize to me revolutionary brothers who warned me and begged me not to get romantic about Obama running for president. They warned me to just look at Africa and the Caribbean with a plethora of white men in black face, presidents and prime ministers for life.  They told me to recall the fate of Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba and others. They told me to study Dr. C. Eric Williams in Trinidad, author of Capitalism and Slavery who became a victim of capitalism and slavery, or Forbes Burnham, Prime Minister of Guyana, with whom I interviewed for the Black Scholar Magazine and Muhammad Speaks, who turned out to be an agent for the C.I.A., since America preferred a Black Power government in Guyana, SA, than a Cuban style Marxist regime under the opposition party led by Cheddi Jeggan. Yes, Prime Minister Forbes Burnham gave refuge to Black Americans seeking freedom from US white supremacy, even brothers wanted by the USA. He gave jobs to black Americans in his government, e.g., Julian Mayfield as Minister of Information and Tom Feelings in the Ministry of Education, but he also killed Dr. Walter Rodney, one of our greatest Pan African intellectuals, e.g., How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, and enabled Rev. Jim Jones to commit mass murder of 900 mostly black people in the jungle of Guyana. 

Was our first black president any better, who droned American citizens to death in Yemen who were never charged in court for suspected terrorist activities? So you prefer a black hangman to a white hangman? Por favor!

So we must discard our romantic illusions that a black face will save us, for it is at best (as a hip hop young man told me), "A white man dipped in chocolate!" Didn't Kwame Nkrumah tell us about Neo-Colonialism, the last stage of imperialism? You are given the flag, national anthem but the banks yet belong to Europe. Neo-colonialism, Nkrumah said, was merely colonialism playing possum! 

Por favor, look at the migrants fleeing the richest continent in the world because of neocolonial politicians selling out their people and resources for a mess of pottage, the precious minerals that enable the world to talk on their cell phones saying nothing except in the words of Dr. E. Franklin Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie, perpetuating the world of make believe and conspicuous consumption.

Where is the black mind that shall lead us to true freedom and liberation in the present era, following our own agenda, not the pseudo black lives matter agenda of the globalists spouting anti-family toxic non-sense when we know our sojourn was about the destruction of the black family, thus our reconstruction as a people must and shall be about the unification of our families, yes, in the African tradition, not some demonic European construct devoid of male/female connection and love giving birth to children of freedom and liberation, not some retards and mutants from the European agenda, devoid of true male/female love as a natural phenomena of the natural world, not some ideological mutant to satisfy European intellectual stupidity. We must not be sycophants of any agenda but our own, and no amount of money shall alter our agenda derived from ancestor dreams and sacred traditions. Black Power Matters!

--Marvin X/El Muhajir

A poor righteous teacher

Hypocrisy at the US Southern Border and related matters

 Hypocrisy at the US Southern Border and related matters

Marvin X at San Francisco's Ocean Beach, Cliff Club

photo Adam Turner

Walls! Walls! Walls! How did those so adamant about walls suddenly wall their capital with a plethora of National Guard troops after what we can only describe as a Turkey Fight on January 6? In our mind, that event at the capital was hardly an insurrection, perhaps a multi-pronged (joint Right/Left conspiracy as per usual when both sides in the D.C. political swamp come together for bilateral mutual benefit. Now Donald Trump may have reached his wit's end with the fabricated election or "selection" in the American tradition. Even the mentally retarded know Trump was the white reaction to Obama and Biden is the Left and Global reaction to Trump, the last white nationalist whom we may see again in 2024. But let's get to the wall and activities on the border. Ironically, America spends 700 billion dollars per year in defense of its national security, with military bases in hundreds of countries around the world, although she has not won a war since WWII that, in fact, the Russians were critical and lost millions of soldiers in the process toward victory. But the 700 billion dollar defense budget didn't make America secure on 9/11 and how can you secure your people with open borders allowing every unclean bird to drift across the border. We know open borders is an agenda item of the globalists, i.e., America technocrats, Chinese Communists, et al., mostly sycophants of the above, including the neo-Democratic Socialists in America. But if America listened to its poets, alas, Robert Frost said fences make good neighbors, the US might retreat from its open border agenda for future political hegemony. Clearly, with the fences around the US capital, not to mention the gated communities around the US politicos of every stripe, we see the hypocrisy of the Democratic party and its wing of Democratic Socialists.

And as per walls, since we have lived in Mexico and know the high walls that hide casas from the calles, and even when my revolutionary contact in Mexico City, artist Elizabeth Catlett Mora and husband Poncho, Communists tambien, lived behind a high wall that one could not see from the street as do most middle class people in Mexico.

I am thus horrified to hear the hypocrisy of the Left as per walls on the border, especially after the construction of the walled capital after the Turkey Fight insurrection. And was there not protests at the walled home of the Democratic leadership, ala Diane Finestein, et al., and has not our dearly President Obama constructed walls around his numerous compounds from Chicago, D.C. and Martha's Vineyard? Please fact check! 

But more importantly is that we know Biden is Obama 3.0., and one need only consider the Biden team to confirm this fact. So as we know, the more things change the more they stay the same. I pray to see the 2024 election, will the Don return to claim his crown? Please note I am neither Democrat or Republican, but I must say in truth I appreciated filling my car up for $40.00 dollars under Trump that the recent gas price rise under the Democrat Biden. More importantly, it is common sense to secure one's border. Alas, during the Crack era when people in the hood allowed the drug gangs to enter their homes, it wasn't long before the drug gangs took over the homes and ran their drugs 24/7 with shifts like Ford Motors in Detroit. As we write, we see there is a crisis on the border, but to the benefit of the drug cartels and the Democratic party long rage agenda to seize power with immigrants and others voting without identification. How did we descend to a Banana Republic overnight or was it a long planned affair. We know there are no coincidences and much of what occurs has been long planned, although those will no concept of history and staged events are dumbfounded when events occur such as germ warfare, along with chemical warfare in the form of drugs, i.e., meth, fentanyl, opioids, et al., to contaminate the US and the global village in a soft coup in the best tradition of the Art of War that negates the 700 billion dollar defense budget of the USA against the new boy on the block, China, in league with its American technocrats and corporate sycophants for the billion plus Chinese market in tandem with Chinese and Asian cheap labor, no matter Muslim and Tibetan concentration camps producing goods for NIKE, Silicon Valley, European fashion designers, Black American rappers and athletes, et al.  

Oh, hypocrisy, hypocrisy! And yet we perceive the economic motive is not the primary motive as radical economists would have us believe in their deconstruction of capitalism and its pseudo free trade mantra. We know fair trade is the just model for economics in the global village. But alas, the 1% have all the money already and the 99% have no chance of catching up with them. Imagine, it will take North American Africans 240 years to equal the wealth of white America! What chance do we have it the socalled equity dialogue. The devilists, yeah devilists, dispense 1.9 trillion and give the 99% $1,400 of their money, after all the US Treasury does belong to the consent of the governed last time I checked, although the people are made to believe they serve the government instead of the reverse. Por favor, the US treasury belongs to the people, not the politicians, yet they have programmed the people into accepting the scam that their money belongs to the politicians who dispense it at their will, beck and call, and we should be thankful for the $1,400 and be silent about the pork balance that goes to the political sycophants, i.e., corporations and teacher unions that have clearly demonstrated their agenda of mis-educating ghetto youth and the deaf, dumb and blind white youth as well.

We suppose the politicians imagine the 85 to 99% are as blind as Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, although we know both these brothers see or could see with their third eye, thus could see better than the 85 to 99% deaf dumb and blind masses, black, white, brown and yellow. Listen to the Danger Zone by Ray Charles:

Look around and you will see what's troubling me

the danger zone is everywhere

read your papers and you will see

what's troubling me

the danger zone is everywhere....

--Ray Charles, The Danger Zone

And Stevie Wonder is so clear he has declared he is moving to Ghana to escape American white supremacy, not only for himself but his children and grandchildren. My daughter has done the same, she says, "They may not have electricity 24/7 in Ghana, but they don't have white supremacy, not 24/7. I am not followed around in expensive stores, restaurants and hotels in Ghana. I am black among my black people, and I am first class, not second class as I was in America, even after I achieved the highest level in corporate America."

My elders tell me we are in a situation worse than slavery. Yet, we have a plethora of black billionaires, but so what?

Didn't we have such wealthy Africans who benefited from the slave trade and whose families still benefit today from the accumulated capital as do European and American families?

America, stop your hypocrisy and foot dragging on the matter of reparations. As a down payment, we demand the US Treasury send a check immediately to every bonafide North American African of 1.4 Million dollars. What do they say in the hood? Money talks and bullshit walks. Whatever we do with the money is our business not yours, Whitey. Didn't you and your ancestors do what they wanted with the wealth they accumulated? So don't think about managing our reparations check. If we want to spend it on blond wigs and bleaching cream, it's our business. And who do you think programmed our minds to want blond wigs and bleaching cream, you motherfucker!

--Marvin X

3/16/21

Fantastic Negrito 3rd Grammy

Oakland's Fantastic Negrito 3rd Grammy

Fantastic Negrito wins Third Grammy

Fantastic Negrito and Poet Marvin X

Photo Adam Turner

Black Bird Press News and Review

,

Parable of the poor man who lived a rich life

 

There was a poor man who lived like a rich man. His father said he was so smart he should have been a billionaire but he outsmarted himself. He grew up in his parents business and when he went to college declared business as his major but changed it to sociology and was awarded the A A degree in Sociology. From Oakland's Merritt College he transferred to San Francisco State University and majored in English/Creative Writing.

He never thought that writing would keep him in poverty. He only knew he loved writing and nothing else. He knew his writing was not commercial and never intended it to be, and it never was. It was radical to the extreme and he intended it to be a vehicle to help free his people.

When the college Drama Department produced his first play, he was thankful until they told him to tone it down. He refused and dropped out of college to establish his own theater in the Fillmore District of San Francisco, Black Arts West Theater with Ed Bullins Duncan Barber Hillary Broadous Ethna Wyatt and Carl Bossiere.

BAW was not about money but freedom. It received no grants but became the critical theater in the black arts movement on the west coast and nation wide in the history of black arts and Liberation.

When Eldridge Cleaver was released from Soledad Prison, he came to the Bay Area and connected with the poor man. But the real reason he came to the Bay Area was to connect with his lawyer Beverly Axelrod who smuggled his manuscript Soul on Ice out of Soledad Prison and it became a best seller. More importantly, he had promised to marry Beverly and upon released moved into her house in San Francisco. 

But when he connected with the poor man, he used his royalties from Soul on Ice to rent Victorian

house on Broderick St that became the Black House, a political cultural center of the Bay Area Black radical community. 

Amiri Baraka and his pregnant wife Amina came to the house and described the poor man's room as Spartan in contrast with the high tech Speaker phone room of EC.

The poor man shared his Spartan quarters with his partner from Black Arts West Theater, Ethna Wyatt, aka, Ethna X, aka, Hurriyah Asar. 

Amina Baraka recalls when whites tried to enter the Black House and a woman told Ethna she was white and Native American. Ethna replied,"The Native American can come in but the white got to go!"

Years later a white woman from Canada became the patron of the poor man. She told him she might be poor but not as poor as him.

A young lady told him he was the poorest famous person she'd ever met.

Yes, he was poor but rich in spirit.

His name was better than gold!

When he called upon people to assist his projects, they answered without charging anything for their services. 

When he agreed to pay a VIP for his services, when the VIP arrived, he told the poor man he would not accept a penny for his services. He came to serve in the name of love. "Brother you can't give me a dime for doing this for you. I'm doing this for you for all the good you have done for our freedom struggle throughout the years, more than half a century!"

The poor man was humbled, overwhelmed.

Once he asked several VIPs to do a benefit for him. When they came at their own expense, people asked him how he brought them together? He said he used a device called the cell phone. A good name is better than gold! 

A VIP woman said, "When he calls you to do something, it is like the Lord calling you. When he says jump, you say how high?

Men, especially rich men, were intimidated in his presence, even though he was the poorest man in the world. A rich man known for his self confidence told an audience the poor man was the most self confident man he'd ever met. Even though he was poor, many men felt insecure in his presence.

Though poor, many could only take his wisdom for an hour or less. And even after an hour, people departed with a headache. A woman friend could only take him for a short while, even when he wined and dined her, she would not return for a month or two. She said she needed time to absorb his wisdom.

One man said he was brutally honest. A young lady said he was blunt! 

Several wanted him to be a stand up comic though he never tried to be funny. 

He gave his knowledge freely, especially to those without money. Once a young man came to his stand at 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland and wanted a book but didn't have money so the poor righteous teacher gave him a book. The young man took a few steps then stopped and broke down into tears. The poor man asked him what was the problem? The young man said no one had ever given him anything in his life.

The poor man knew his mission was beyond money. Still people begged him to stop giving away his books and writings for free.

Sometimes his rich patron would seize his books when they came off the press so the poor man would not give them away.

His children told him to stop giving away his writings for free. One daughter said, "Dad, why would anyone pay for your writings when you post them daily on the internet?"

Still, the poor man wrote daily because he loved to write and not for money or fame. He didn't care about awards and rewards, even though a good friend told him to go for the reward, i.e. the money!

One elder told him to stay poor. It would keep him honest and truthful.

Still people begged him to monitize and he knew they were right since he knew too often we focus on the show and forget the show business.

The poor man simply could not focus on the business. He was absorbed with the show!

He knew it takes money to produce a show, to pay actors, dancers, musicians, tech crew, front house, but he would let the Spirit come to him for such mundane matters. And the Spirit blessed him time after time.

He knew time was money and money was time but time was more important to him than money. He treasured his time.

His time was worth millions to him. A free man owns his time, thus he can create at his pleasure. Some men have millions of dollars but somebody else owns their time. They are not free men, they are slaves.

The poor man treasured his time, time to think, write, produce. And he produced with no budget time after time. He loved that film Field of Dreams, e g., If you build they will come!

--cont

--MARVIN X

3/10/21

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

Cornel West departs Harvard and the Street People poem by Marvin X

 

I'm glad my beloved brother and revolutionary comrade has departed that shithole called Harvard. His genius is far beyond the low information vibration mentality of Harvard. As per Black people, my mother told me, "Marvin, you don't need niggas, niggas need you!" I told Cornel West the same, "Cornel, you don't need Harvard, Harvard needs you!" Praise be to Allah you are gone from that rathole!

If streets could talk

If streets could talk

They would say damn

WTF mf

These people ain't people

We used to see

Up and down back forth

Night day

Not these people

Strange people

Street people

Suit and tie suite people

Job people rob people

Homeless tent people

Cardboard loving people

Street dope fiend people

Suite dope fiend people

Make daily run walk jog

Dog people

Love people ❤️

Hate people

Straight gay lez trans people

Holy ghost people

Catholic confession holy Mary Mother of God people

Muslim Muhammad people

Jewish chosen of God people

Yoruba Jah Rastafari people

Black Hebrew Israelite people

Noble Drew Ali Mo Science people

Walking talking praising praying

Down streets of joy hate love

We hold support embrace

The good bad ugly uggly

Saintified satanfied

They walk to and fro

Smiling frowning grinning shouting

Black lives matter

MAGA MAGA MAGA

La Raza la raza la Raza

Hotep

Alafia

Salaam akh ukhti

What's up dog

My nigga

My bitch

Street sounds abound

we streets listen

Streets cry

Look at our tears

Rolling down the street

We wonder

Can people do better

Is this really

The best they can do

We streets say no

They can do better

Love better ❤️

Hate better

Not for no reason

Kindergarten colors

WTF

Colors

Class

Caste

Illusions of the monkey mind

Guru Bawa said

illusions of the monkey mind

If streets could

We'd shut the fk up

Silencia por favor silencia

Calle dice

Nada mas!

--MARVIN X

3/9/21

Marvin X, Star Witness at Probate Court trial of his late Patron's estate, Abdul Leroy James

 Marvin X 

Star Witness at Probate Court trial of his late Patron's estate 

Abdul Leroy James

Attorney Clinton Killian

Marvin X

photo Adam Turner

Ancestor Abdul Leroy James, Patron of Marvin X, Bay Area Social Justice Philanthropist

Larry James and Marvin X on the ten-acre estate where Marvin X lived for five years and wrote five books

in solitude. Leroy and Larry were co-owners. The main house burned down in the Paradise fire but Marvin's apartment was untouched.

photo Adam Turner

After the Paradise fire that destroyed the main house, Marvin X stands in door of his Cherokee apartment that was untouched in the Paradise fire. Leroy James gave him this space to write five books in five years of solitude as he also healed from the death of his son, Darrell, 39 years old, and the transition of his estranged partner due to his drug abuse, Oakland High School English Teacher, Marsha Satterfield, 41years old RIP. 

Shortly after Dr. Huey P. Newton was murdered on the streets of West Oakland, Marvin wrote a scene of his last meeting with Huey in a West Oakland Crack House. This scene became a one-act play by Marvin X and Ed Bullins and was produced in New York at Woody King's New Federal Theatre. The full length play of Marvin's addiction and recovery One Day in the Life, became a recovery community classic that Leroy James helped produce, beginning at the Uhuru House in East Oakland. Mayor Willie Brown invited the production to San Francisco where it was produced at the Bannam Place Theatre, North Beach, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre on theatre row in Union Square, and at Recovery Theatre, St. Boniface Church, in the Tenderloin. When the video version toured the east coast, Marvin treated his Patron and his partner, Paula, to accompany his tour.  

Eldridge Cleaver and Alprintice Bunchy Carter

Leroy James supported the Oakland memorial service for Eldridge Cleaver, Marvin X officiated, 1998.

Kathleen Cleaver and the Cleaver's daughter, Joju, attended.  Participants included Dr. Nathan Hare, Dr. Yusef Bey, Emory Douglas, Tarika Lewis, Imam Alamin, Minister Keith Muhammad, and Majeedah Rahman. When Eldridge and Marvin X were on Crack, Leroy James gave them one of his properties in the Oakland hills after they promised to write a book about Leroy. But it was a Crack lie to get money from Leroy as did many people. "In sha Allah, I shall write the book on my beloved Patron's life. Surely he did more good than evil, especially with the wealth that he acquired. We love you brother Abdul Leroy James. RIP!"

Marvin X Testifies

Yesterday, Oakland Attorney Clinton Killian prepared Marvin X to give testimony today as an impartial witness in the Probate Court trial of his late Patron, Abdul Leroy James' estate: Michaela Abdul, Contestant vs. Lauria E. Mozon, Respondent. Attorney Killian told Marvin X he had to hit a Hank Aaron home run. The matter being decided is whether Lauria E. Mozon was married to Abdul Leroy James. Marvin knew Leroy James since childhood when they grew up in West Oakland. Marvin was infatuated with his 6th grade classmate, Jackie Adams. Leroy was a friend of her younger brother. Many years later, Marvin and Jackie met at the funeral of Leroy's mother. At today's hearing, Marvin was questioned whether Lauria was at the funeral of Leroy's mother. The poet said he didn't recall her being present. Attorney Killian asked if Leroy ever referred to Lauria as his wife? Marvin said no. Throughout their long relationship, Leroy repeatedly told Marvin he didn't believe in marriage, although Lauria produced a marriage license, but it had Leroy's brother's name as the husband, Larry James, who has a wife. Apparently Leroy had no intention of marrying Lauria. He never told Marvin he had married Lauria. The poet told the court, "I was shocked to learn of this socalled marriage only after the death of my patron. 

Attorney Killian began questioning Marvin on his background as a black radical writer. Marvin explained that he came from conscious parents who published a black newspaper when he was born, 1944, in Fowler, California, The Fresno Voice where his parents lived when he was born. His black consciousness was developed further when he attended Oakland's Merritt College, where his classmates were Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, who would co-found the Black Panther Party, 1966. 

Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, Co-founders of the Black Panther Party, 1966

"We all were influenced by the Afro-American Association, under the leadership of Attorney Donald Warden, aka Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour. 

The parents of Vice President Kamala Harris met at Oakland's Afro-American Association

Vice President Kamala Harris's parents met at a session of the Afro-American Association that lead to the Black Panther Party, Black Arts Movement and Black Studies. 

In the 70s, Marvin X reconnected with Leroy James and his brother Larry. Leroy, now a multi-millionaire real estate investor, became Marvin's patron and helped publish his books and helped finance Marvin's artistic productions and community social justice projects. In 1979, Marvin X was teaching English at the University of Nevada, Reno.

While at UNR, he was awarded two planning grants from the National Endowment of the Humanities to produce two conferences for the Reno Black Community. But when the Oakland Police killed his friend's brother, 15 year old Melvin Black, Marvin was urged to return to Oakland to help his friend rally the community to stop the monthly killing of black men. With the financial support of Leroy James, Marvin organized a rally attended by five thousand people at the Oakland Auditorium, and invited Minister Farrakhan as the keynote speaker. 

Minister Farrakhan spoke at the Melvin Black Forum on Human Rights at the Oakland Auditorium. After the rally attended by 5,000 people without incident, the police killing of black men stopped, but the drive by killings of blacks by blacks began and has persisted into the now. Young men told Marvin, "OG, you know what we do when we bored? We get our uzis, bulletproof vests and ride through the hood killing niggas." To himself, Marvin noted, "So we worse than the KKK, at least they killed us because they hated us. We kill us because we bored! WTF!"

Attorney Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour at the Melvin Black Forum on Human Rights, 1979,

financed by Abdul Leroy James, organized by Marvin X. During Al Mansour's speech that dragged on, the keynote speaker, Minister Farrakhan, called Marvin to the green room and told him if he didn't get Mansour off stage he was leaving for Chicago immediately. Marvin returned to the stage and snatched the mike from Mansour and gave it to Minister Farrakhan's Assistant Khalid Muhammad who brought on the Minister.

 

The AAA gave birth to the Black Panther Party, Black Studies and the West Coast Black Arts Movement, co-founded by Marvin X. His first writings appeared in the Student Magazine at Merritt and later in Soulbook, a radical publication of RAM or the Revolutionary Action Movement, headed by Robert F. Williams (Negroes With Guns) and Max Stanford.

Other speakers included Angela Davis, Eldridge Cleaver, Paul Cobb, Dessie Woods Jones, Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour, et al. Leroy offered one of his properties in the Oakland hills for Minister Farrakhan. Attorney Killian asked Marvin did Lauria attend the Melvin Black Forum on Human Rights? No, sir, Marvin said. What other events did Leroy help you produce? "In 1980 he helped me produce the Black Men's Conference at the Oakland Auditorium. He provided one of his properties for the Black Men's Conference office." Did Lauria attend the Black Men's Conference, asked Killian? No, sir. Did she ever visit the Black Men's Conference office? No, sir. Did she ever tell you she was Leroy's wife? No, sir.

Did he have other women? Yes, sir. Did he call these women his wives? No, sir. He didn't believe in marriage. Who were these other women? Marvin, "There was Joan, Paula, Kim, Doris, Nicole and others!" They lived at his various properties. Did Lauria know these other women? I don't think so. Did you visit the house where she lived? Yes. Did she ever tell you she was his wife? No, sir. Did he sleep in the master bedroom with her? No, sir. He usually slept on the coach in the living room. 

"Marvin X, for five years, you lived on the ten-acre estate of Mr. James in Cherokee, Butte County. What did you do there for five years?" I wrote five books and healed from the loss of my son and a partner. "Did Lauria ever visit the estate?" No, sir, not that I recall. Did Paula visit the estate? Yes, sir. 

What were the other productions Mr. James assisted you with, Marvin X? In 1998, he assisted me with the memorial service for Eldridge Cleaver. Did Lauria attend? No, sir. In 2001, he helped me produce the Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness at San Francisco State University. Did Lauria attend? No, sir, Paula and Leroy helped take ticket money at the door. In 2004, I produced the San Francisco Tenderloin Black Radical Book Fair.

Attorney Killian, "Did Lauria attend?" No sir, Paula did. He housed some of the participants at his house on Lake Chabot Road in Castro Valley. Did you ever stay at the house on Lake Chabot Road? Yes, sir. Did Lauria ever visit the house on Lake Chabot Road? No sir, I don't recall ever seeing her there. But Paula lived there. 

Marvin X was cross examined by two lawyers but they had few questions and the court session ended. Attorney Killian and his assistant told Marvin he gave excellent testimony. Attorney Killian said, "It was combination Hank Aaron and Willie Mays testimony." After the remaining witnesses give their testimony, the judge will decide if Laruia Mozon was in fact married to Abdul Leroy James and his estate will be divided accordingly. Stay turned to the Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience, a video documentary on the life and times of the artistic freedom fighter.

In 2019, Marvin X invited Dr. Cornel West to Oakland for a Conversation on local, national and global issues. Continuing the philanthropic tradition of his brother Leroy, Larry James helped produce this event at Geoffrey's Inner Circle. Hassan Larry James was also in charge of security for the event. 

The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and The Most Honorable Martin Luther King, Jr.

My final word on Abdul Leroy James, we both dearly loved and appreciated the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Leroy forever thanked the HEM for teaching him how to do for self. This knowledge gave him the motivation to become a multimillionaire. As per probate, both men estates went into probate. My daughter, Attorney Amira Jackmon, opened a law office for estate planning, but after she saw black people didn't rush to pay her $2,500.00 to do their estate planning and would rather lose their family wealth in probate court, she closed down her law office but continued during her legal work as a high finance bonds attorney. 

--Marvin X

2/2/21

Hapi b day son, miss you much, love you much

 Left to right: Darrell, Grandfather Owendell Jackmon I, Marvin K, Marvin X

Left to right: Darrell and Marvin K on a visit with their father to Oaxaca, Southern Mexico

 Left: Darrell Patrick Jackmon, Abdul El Muhajir 

March 1, 1964-March 18, 2002

Right: Marvin X/El Muhajir

All praise is due Allah I enjoyed my second son for 39 years. He was the love of my life, although I deeply love all my children and although I was an absent father for many years, I have reconciled with most of them and they have supported my various projects coast to coast, including Marvin K, Nefertiti,

Muhammida and Amira. Their mothers gave them the discipline (and step fathers) so that I almost never had to raise my voice or whip them. But Darrell was special to me as my mother said I was special to her. 

My sister Debbi said he was the reincarnation of myself, "He walked like you, talked like you, laughed like you, studied like you!"

His mental problems began while attending U.C. Santa Cruz. He studied Arabic and Middle Eastern literature, eventually graduating from U.C. Berkeley in Arabic and Near Eastern literature. From UCB he studied at the American University, Cairo, Egypt, visited Israel and Palestine. Was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to the University of Damascus, Syria. Returned to do graduate work at Harvard until his mental health deteriorated and he returned home. He suffered mani-depression. We say his medication lead him to commit suicide by walking into a train. 

Dr. Frantz Fanon and Dr. Nathan Hare say manic depression is a  "situational disorder" caused by oppression. Both say the oppressed can regain their mental equilibrium by participating in revolution. Revolution is thus therapeutic, the cleansing of toxicity, i.e., trauma and unresolved grief. Dr. Nathan Hare said homicide and suicide are two sides of the same coin:

"I read somewhere toward the back of Wretched of the Earth where Fanon says expressly and with considerable certainty that manic depression is a mental illness born of oppression. At least Abdul will have no more oppression, no more depression, and no more pain, free at last, living on in your memory and memories of others, and, in a way, that is more than symbolic in your work with other victims of the 'situational disorders' that so intrigued and baffled Frantz Fanon. Thirty-nine, as I remember, was the age of both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X when they made their transition--Abdul just had a way of resisting that was a little bit different, turning inward what could not so easily be turned outward in these immobilized times--and had a little less luck in coming of revolutionary age in the late eighties and nineties instead of the late fifties and sixties."

--Dr. Nathan Hare, In the Crazy House Called America, Marvin X, Black Bird Press, 2002, p3

Dr. Nathan Hare and his student Marvin X

photo Adam Turner

Anna Malaika Tubbs: The Mothers of the Civil Rights Movement. Marvin X comments on his Mother, Marian Murrill Jackmon

I was deeply moved by Anna Malaika Tubbs discussion of her book on the mothers of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr. and James Baldwin. But much of what she said was similar to remarks I have made in my writings about my mother, though she inspired me to discuss further my mother who produced me, her wonder child, although I had no knowledge of such until my adulthood when my siblings revealed their jealousy of me because my mother had made known to them that she knew I was a special child, her special child. Yet I have written that I know so much of what I am is due directly to my mother's influence on my development even though I often thought she did not give me the attention I wanted from her. I did not understand she was a single mother raising nine children and two grandchildren as she worked her real estate business which was only the surface structure mission of her life. I came to ultimately understand that she was a spiritualist (disciple of Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science) and this was the mission in the deep structure of her soul. I am convinced if she hadn't to care for her eleven children and her real estate business, she would have devoted full time to her spiritual ministry. But being practical, she merged her real estate business with her spiritual ministry, i.e., her customers were her subjects for spiritual enlightenment and many times I sat in her office as she counseled her clients, most especially when they were selling property in a bitter divorce. She had to counsel them so they would reconcile their differences in order for the deal to close escrow, otherwise she could not get her commission. Over many years I sat in her office watching her counsel couples who were bitter towards each other but she had no choice but to apply her spiritual wisdom to reconcile them. 

As Anna Malaika Tubbs continued to discuss her book about the great mothers who produced Malcolm, Martin and James, I could not help but reflect on my mother, especially when I used to mumble when speaking. She told me over and over that if I did not learn to speak up and enunciate my words, I would not go very far in life. Thanks to my mother, most people know I actually don't need a mike to speak. Of course part of the reason is because my years in theatre, but it started with Mama telling me to speak up so she could understand me. 

Of course I learned from her to combine business and spirituality after seeing her counsel her clients over the years. I've found myself selling my books but listening to people who have come to me with their many problems at my Academy of Da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland. There were many times when I listened to the problems of street people that I knew I was in my mother's persona, but I knew as she was needed, so was I in my time. Sometimes the people would get in my face eyeball to eyeball to make sure I was listening to them as they had no one else who had time to hear their problems.

Often they cried to me because they had lost loved ones to violence, whether violence in the hood or police violence, but no one cared about their slain loved one. They wanted to know why one slain person in the hood or who suffered police violence could have rallies but there was nothing for their loved ones, not even a police investigation. I had no choice but to listen yet I was psychologically exhausted from years of working with mothers and families who’d lost loved ones to violence in the hood or at the hands of police. 

Once I worked with mothers of sons slain in drive by killings during the crack era until I could take it no more. Sitting in a room full of mothers in grief at the lost of their sons was overwhelming to the point that even today, years later, I am unable to attend rallies such as the Oscar Grant murder and numberous others that would make me an ambulance chasing. I have often thought about what Elijah Muhammad told Malcolm X when the police raided the Mosque in Los Angeles. Elijah told Malcolm that in war there shall be many soldiers slain on the battlefield but we cannot react to every tragic situation that may put the entire Nation of Islam in harms way. 

Mrs. Tubbs discussed the close relationship between James Baldwin and his mother, who exchanged letters throughout their lives. She said his mother was his oracle. My mother advised me many many times, from the time my girlfriend got pregnant when I was 18. She told me I didn’t need to marry her because she was pregnant, but go on to college. I ignored her and married the mother of my two sons but the marriage was over shortly after they were born. She told me further, I didn’t need to get married period. She said I needed a maid, secretary and mistress but not a wife. At 76, I am yet grappling with Mama’s wisdom, still trying to figure out how she had deconstructed my artistic personality, but after multiple failed marriages, do I have a choice but to confess she was right? At this time in my life, i.e., the fourth quarter with a hail Mary left, I surely don’t need a wife but I could use a maid, secretary and mistress. 

After meeting my many friends, including Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Sun Ra, and others, Mama said, “Them niggas ain’t nothing, Marvin. You don’t need them niggas, them niggas need you! And than Eldridge Cleaver is the worst of all them niggas, talking about he saw Jesus in the moon. Boy, leave them niggas alone and use the mind God gave you. If you don’t God is going to take your mind from you.”

On her death bed at Alta Bates hospital in Berkeley, her last words to me were complaining about the bland food and to get her some money as she had lost all her property when interest rates were high and the Crack era made it difficult to pay her mortgages because renters wouldn’t pay their rent. Alas, I had fell victim to Crack myself and before she got sick she came to Oakland pleading with my sisters to see her wonder child after a long absence from visiting her. I am honored to have Marian Murrill as my mother and will spend my last days trying to honor and respect her for making me the man I am.

--Marvin X

3/1/21

Parents of Marvin X at the 1945 Peace Conference in San Francisco that established the United Nations:

Marian Murrill Jackmon and Owendell Jackmon I