Marvin X (b. 1944), poet, playwright, essayist, director, and lecturer. Marvin
Ellis Jackmon was born on
29 May 1944 in Fowler, California. He attended high
school in Fresno and received a BA and MA in English from
San Francisco StateCollege (now
San Francisco State University). The mid-1960s were formative
years for Jackmon. He became involved in theater, founded his own press,
published several plays and volumes of poetry, and became increasingly
alienated because of racism and the
Vietnam War. Under the influence of
ElijahMuhammad, he became a Black Muslim and has published since then under the
names El Muhajir and Marvin X. He has also used the name Nazzam al Fitnah Muhajir.
Marvin X and
Ed Bullins founded the Black Arts/West
Theatre in San Francisco in
1966, and several of his plays were staged during that period in
San Francisco,
Oakland, New York, and by local companies across the United States. His one-act
play Flowers for the Trashman was staged in San Francisco in 1965 by the drama
department at San Francisco State University, later at Black Arts West
Theatre, and was included in the anthology Black Fire (1968); a musical version (with
Sun Ra's Arkestra), Take Care of Business, was produced in 1971. The play
presents the confrontation between two cellmates in a jail—one a young African
American college student, the other a middle-aged white man. Another one-act
play, The Black Bird, a Black Muslim allegory in which a young man offers
lessons in life awareness to two small girls, appeared in 1969 and was
included in New Plays from the Black Theatre that year. Several other plays,
including The Trial, Resurrection of the Dead, and In the Name of Love, have been successfully staged, and Marvin X has remained an important advocate of African American theater.
In 1970, Marvin X was convicted, during the Vietnam War, for refusing
induction and fled to Canada; eventually he was arrested in British Honduras,
was returned to the United States, and was sentenced to five months in prison. In
his statement on being sentenced—later reprinted in Black Scholar (1971) and
also in Clyde Taylor's anthology, Vietnam and Black America (1973)—he argues
that
Any judge, any jury, is guilty of insanity that would have the nerve to judge
and convict and imprison a black man because he did not appear in a courtroom
on a charge of refusing to commit crimes against humanity, crimes against his
own brothers and sisters, the peace-loving people of Vietnam.
Marvin X founded El Kitab Sudan publishing house in 1967; several of his books
of poetry and proverbs have been published there. Much of Marvin X's poetry is
militant in its anger at American racism and injustice. For example, in “Did
You Vote Nigger?” he uses rough dialect and directs his irony at African
Americans who believe in the government but are actually its pawns. Many of the
proverbs in The Son of Man (1969) express alienation from
white America.
However, many of Marvin X's proverbs and poems express more concern with what
African Americans can do positively for themselves, without being paralyzed by
hatred. He insists that the answer is to concentrate on establishing a racial
identity and to “understand that art is celebration of Allah.” The poems in Fly
to Allah, Black Man Listen (1969), and other volumes from his El Kitab Sudan
press are characterized by their intensity and their message of racial unity
under a religious banner.
Marvin X has remained active as a lecturer, teacher,
theatrical producer,
editor, and exponent of Spirituality. His work in advocating racial cohesion
and spiritual dedication as an antidote to the legacy of racism he saw around
him in the 1960s and 1970s made him an important voice of his generation. One of
his current projects is Academy of da Corner, downtown
Oakland at 14th and
Broadway. According the
Ishmael Reed, "Marvin X is Plato teaching on the
streets of Oakland. If you want to learn about motivation and inspiration,
don't spend all that money going to seminars and workshops, just go stand at
14th and Broadway and observe Marvin X at work."
Bibliography
*
Lorenzo Thomas, “Marvin X,” in DLB, vol. 38, Afro-American Writers after
1955:
Dramatists and Prose Writers, eds. Thadious Davis and Trudier Harris,
1985, pp. 177–184.
* Bernard L. Peterson, Jr., “Marvin X,” in Contemporary Black
AmericanPlaywrights and Their Plays, 1988, pp. 332–333. “El Muhajir,” in CA, vol. 26,
eds. Hal May and James G. Lesniak, 1989, pp. 132–133
--Michael E. Greene
poet; playwright; educator; activistPersonal Information
Born Marvin Ellis Jackmon on May 29, 1944, in Fowler, California; married; five
children
Education:
Oakland City College (now
Merritt College), AA, 1964;
San FranciscoState College (now University), BA, 1974, MA, 1975.
Career
Soul Book, Encore, Black World, Black Scholar, Black Dialogue, Journal of
Black Poetry, Black theatre, Negro Digest/Black World,
Muhammad Speaks and
other magazines and newspapers, contributor, 1965-; Black Dialogue, fiction editor, 1965-; Journal of Black Poetry, contributing editor,1965-; Black Arts/West Theatre,
SanFrancisco, co-founder (with Bullins), 1966; Black House, San Francisco,
co-founder (with Bullins and
Eldridge Cleaver), 1967; Al Kitab Sudan Publishing
Company, San Francisco, founder, 1967;
California State University at Fresno,
black studies teacher, 1969; Black Theatre, associate editor, 1968;
MuhammadSpeaks, foreign editor, 1970; Your Black Educational Theatre, Inc., San
Francisco, founder and director, 1971;
Teaching Career:
University of California, Berkeley,
lecturer, 1972;
Mills College, lecturer, 1973,
San Francisco State University, 1974-5,
University of California, San Diego, 1975,
University of Nevada, Reno, 1979,
Laney and Merritt Colleges, Oakland, 1981,
Kings River College, Reedley CA, 1982.
Recent Reading and Speaking engagements:
San Francisco State University
University of California, Berkeley
Laney College, Oakland
Merritt College, Oakland
Contra Costa College, Richmond CA
Morehouse College, ATL
Spelman College, ATL
University of Texas, Houston
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
University of VirginiaUniversity of Penn, Philadelphia
Temple University, Philadelphia
Medgar Evers College, Brooklyn
New York UniversityBerkeley City College,
BerkeleyCalifornia College of the Arts, San Francisco
Howard University, Washington DCSan Francisco Theatre FestivalSchomberg Library, Harlem NY
Life's Work
Formerly known as El Muhajir, Marvin X was a key poet and playwright of the
Black Arts Movement (BAM) in the 1960s and early 1970s. He wrote for many of
the leading black journals of the time, including Black Scholar, Black Theater
Magazine, and Muhammad Speaks. He founded Black House with Ed Bullins (1935--)
and Eldridge Cleaver (1935-1998), which served for a short time as the
headquarters of the
Black Panther Party, the militant black nationalist group,
and a community theatrical center in Oakland County,
California. Always a
controversial and confrontational figure, Marvin X was banned from teaching at
state universities in the 1960s by the then state governor, Ronald Reagan
(1911--). When asked in 2003 what had happened to the Black Arts Movement,
Marvin X told Lee Hubbard: "I am still working on it...telling it like it is."
Marvin X was born Marvin Ellis Jackmon on May 29, 1944, in Fowler, California,
an agricultural area near
Fresno. His parents were Owendell and Marian
Jackmon; his mother ran her own real estate business. Details about when and
why he changed his name are scarce, but he has been known as Nazzam al Fitnah
Muhajir, El Muhajir, and is now known simply as Marvin X. Marvin X attended
Oakland City College (Merritt College) where he received his
AA degree in 1964.
He received his BA in English from
San Francisco State College (
San FranciscoState University) in 1974 and his MA in 1975.
While at college Marvin X was involved with various theater projects and
co-founded the Black Arts/West Theater with Bullins and others. Their aim was
to provide a place where black writers and performers could work on drama
projects, but they also had a political motive, to use theater and writing to
campaign for the liberation of blacks from white oppression. Marvin X told Lee
Hubbard: "The Black Arts Movement was part of the
liberation movement of Black
people in America. The Black Arts Movement was its artistic arm...[brothers]
got a revolutionary consciousness through Black art, drama, poetry, music,
paintings, artwork, and magazines."
By the late 1960s Marvin X was a central figure in the Black Arts Movement in
San Francisco and had become part of the
Nation of Islam, changing his name to
El Muhajir and following
Elijah Muhammad (1897-1975). Like the heavyweight
boxing champion
Muhammad Ali (1942--), Marvin X refused his induction to fight
in Vietnam. But unlike Ali, Marvin X, along with several other members of the
Nation of Islam in California, decided to evade arrest. In 1967 he escaped to
Canada but was later arrested in Belize. He chastised the court for punishing
him for refusing to be inducted into an army for the purpose of securing "White
Power" throughout the world before he was sentenced to five months'
imprisonment. His statement was published in the journal The Black Scholar in
1971.
Despite his reputation as an activist, Marvin X was also an intellectual, and a
celebrated writer. He was most concerned with the problem of using language
created by whites in order to argue for freedom from white power. Many of his
plays and poems reflect this struggle to express himself as a black
intellectual in a white-dominated society. His play Flowers for the Trashman
(1965), for example, is the story of Joe Simmons, a jailed college student whose
bitter attack on his white cellmate became a national rallying call for many in
the Nation of Islam and other black nationalists. Marvin X's own poetry is
heavy with Muslim ideology and propaganda, but it is supported by a sensitive
poetic ear. Perhaps his greatest achievement as a poet is to merge Islamic
cadences and sensibilities with scholarly
American English and the language of
the black ghetto.
Like his close friend Eldridge Cleaver, in the late 1980s and 1990s Marvin X
went through a period of addiction to crack cocaine. His play One Day in the
Life (2000) takes a tragicomic approach to the issue of addiction and recovery,
dealing with his own experiences with drug addiction and the experiences of
Black Panthers, Cleaver, and
Huey Newton (1942-1989). The play has been
presented in community theaters around the United States as both a stage play
and a video presentation. He discusses his relationship with Cleaver in
Eldridge Cleaver, My friend the Devil, a memoir, 2009.
After emerging from addiction Marvin X founded Recovery Theatre and began
organizing events for recovering addicts and those who work with them. His
autobiography, Somethin' Proper (1998) includes reminiscences of his life
fighting for black civil rights as well as an analysis of drug culture. Drug
addiction and "reactionary" rap poetry are two areas of black culture that he has argued have "contributed to the desecration of black people."
In the late 1990s Marvin X became an influential figure in the campaign to have
reparations paid for the treatment of blacks under slavery. He organized
meetings, readings, and performances to promote black culture and
civil rights.
He has worked as a university teacher since the early 1970s, as well as giving
readings and guest lectures in universities and theaters throughout the United
States.
Marvin X has also received several awards, including a
ColumbiaUniversity writing grant in 1969 and a creative writing fellowship from the
National Endowment for the Arts in 1972.
Awards
Columbia University, writing grant, 1969; National Endowment for the Arts,
grant, 1972; Your Black Educational Theatre, training grant, 1971-72.
Recovery Theatre received grants from
San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown's office,
Grants for the Arts, Marin County Board of Supervisors, Sacramento
Metropolitan Arts Commission.
Works
Selected writings
Books
* Somethin' Proper: The Life and Times of a North American African Poet,
Blackbird Press, 1998.
* In the Crazy House Called America, Blackbird Press, 2002.
* Wish I Could Tell You the Truth, essays, BBP, 2005
* How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, a manual based on the
12 Step/Pan African model, 2006.
* Beyond Religion, toward Spirituality, BBP, 2007
* Eldridge Cleaver, My Friend the Devil, a memoir, 2009
* The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/fables, 2010
* Hustler's Guide to the Game Called Life (Volume II, The Wisdom of Plato
Negro, 2010
* Mythology of Pussy and Dick, toward Healthy Psychosocial Sexuality, 2010
* Pull Yo Pants Up fada Black Prez, essays on Obama Drama, 2010
* I AM OSCAR GRANT, essays on Oakland, 2010
Plays
* Flowers for the Trashman (one-act), first produced in San Francisco at
SanFrancisco State College, 1965.
* Come Next Summer, first produced in San Francisco at Black Arts/West Theatre,
1966. Pre-Black Panther
Bobby Seale played leading role in Come Next Summer.
* The Trial, first produced in New York City at Afro-American Studio for Acting
and Speech, 1970.
* Take Care of Business, (musical version of Flowers for the Trashman) first
produced in
Fresno, California, at Your Black Educational Theatre, 1971.
* Resurrection of the Dead, first produced in San Francisco at Your Black
Educational Theatre, 1972.
* Woman-Man's Best Friend, (
musical dance drama based on author's book of same
title), first produced in
Oakland, California, at
Mills College, 1973.
* In the Name of Love, first produced in Oakland at
Laney College Theatre,
1981.
* One Day in the Life, 2000.
* Sergeant Santa, 2002.
Poetry, Proverbs, and Lyrics
* Sudan Rajuli Samia (poems), Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1967.
* Black Dialectic (proverbs), Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1967.
* As Marvin X, Fly to Allah: Poems, Al Kitab
Sudan Publishing, 1969.
* As Marvin X, The Son of Man, Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1969.
* As Marvin X, Black Man Listen: Poems and Proverbs, Broadside Press, 1969.
* Black Bird (parable), Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1972.
* Woman-Man's Best Friend, Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1973.
*
Selected Poems, Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1979.
* (as Marvin X) Confession of a Wife Beater and Other Poems, Al Kitab Sudan
Publishing, 1981.
* Liberation Poems for North American Africans, Al Kitab Sudan
Publishing, 1982.
* Love and War: Poems, Black Bird Press, 1995
* In the Land of My Daughters, 2005.
* Sweet Tea, Dirty Rice, poems, 2010 (late)
Other
* One Day in the Life (videodrama and soundtrack), 2002.
* The Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness (video documentary), 2002.
* Black Radical Book Fair, San Francisco, DVD, 2004
* Love and War (poetry reading published on CD), 2001.
Further Reading
Periodicals
*
African American Review, Spring, 2001.
*
Oakland Post Newspaper*
San Francisco Bay View newspaper
On-line
* "Chicken Bones: A Journal,"
www.nathanielturner.com/marvinxtable.htm (April
13, 2004).
* "El Muhajir," Biography Resource Center,
www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC (April
16, 2004).
* "Marvin X," Biography Resource Center, www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC (April
16, 2004).
* "Marvin X Calls for
General Strike on Reparations,"
www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=4714 (April 13, 2004).
— Chris Routledge
The Marvin X archives are at the
Bancroft Library,
University of California,Berkeley.
Rodney D. Coates, East St. Louis IL
Lamont b. Steptoe, Philadelphia PA
Adrienne N. Wartts, St. Louis MO
