Now on DVD: Long Distance Revolutionary, A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal

As we collectively respond to the shredding of the Constitution by the United States government as unsurprisingly revealed by the recent NSA leaks, we might be well served to think of Mumia, who has been targeted by authoritarian and repressive forces since he was 15 -- from COINTELPRO to Death Row. The intellectual, emotional, and spiritual strength that has propelled him to become one of the world's leading voices for justice is a deep part of why we made this film. Get this important DVD today - for yourself and as a gift - and experience why Mumia Abu-Jamal continues to be so vital, why he continues to be the "Long Distance Revolutionary.”     “'Long Distance Revolutionary' is a blistering indictment of institutionalized racism and also a sensitive picture of a fascinating human being." - The Oregonian "Vittoria triumphantly heralds Abu-Jamal's return to the political scene  as a rallying cry for an alternate political discourse." — Variety “MUMIA: Long Distance Revolutionary” is a powerful indictment  of the hypocrisy inherent in the American dream and is a must-see  for any and all who are concerned with upholding the constitutional rights of all Americans.”  — The Huffington Post     SHARE us on Facebook and write a post about the film and Mumia TWEET about us on Twitter LINK to the Trailer on YouTube     A Street Legal Cinema Production Written, Directed, and Edited by Stephen Vittoria Produced by Stephen Vittoria, Noelle Hanrahan, and Katyana Farzanrad FEATURING Cornel West, Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Dick Gregory, Amy Goodman, Peter Coyote, Ruby Dee, Giancarlo Esposito, and many others VISIT www.mumia-themovie.com     Like Us On   Follow Us On   Watch Us On

Plato Negro's Academy of da Corner at Berkeley Flea Market this weekend

Catch Marvin X at the Harlem Book Fair, July 20, 2013, at the National Writers Union Booth

Poet/teacher Marvin X in front of his Academy of da Corner booth at Berkeley Juneteenth, with librarian Ayiba (Linda) Jolivet and UC professor emeritus/novelist Cecil Brown, who will release his latest work PRYOR LIVES (How Richard Pryor became Richard Pryor), a study, memoir and biography rolled into one. photo Princess O. Davis


This weekend, Berkeley's Flea Market at Ashby BART (the crossroads of North American African culture), will feature Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner. "Plato Negro" is Oakland's philosopher, poet, playwright, producer, teacher, aka Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland (Ishmael Reed); the USA's Rumi (Bob Holman); a master teacher in many fields of thought; one of America's great story tellers; I'd put him ahead of Mark Twain! (Rudolph Lewis). Look for him at booth #600, first row. He will be autographing his many books, including his latest The Wisdom of Plato Negro, parables, fables, Black Bird Press, Berkeley, 2012, How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy and the most requested title Beyond Religion, toward Spirituality, BBP, Berkeley, 2006.

This book is an encyclopedia of knowledge. He's a griot if there ever was one!
--Mumia Abu Jamal, Live from Death Row

Marvin X has done extraordinary mind and soul work in bringing our attention to the importance of spirituality, as opposed to religion, in our daily living. Someone�maybe Kierkegaard or maybe it was George Fox who�said that there was no such thing as "Christianity." There can only be Christians. It is not institutions but rather individuals who make the meaningful differences in our world. It is not Islam but Muslims. Not Buddhism but Buddhists. Marvin X has made a courageous difference. In this book he shares the wondrous vision of his spiritual explorations. His eloquent language and rhetoric are varied�sophisticated but also earthy, sometimes both at once.

Highly informed he speaks to many societal levels and to both genders�to the intellectual as well as to the man/woman on the street or the unfortunate in prison�to the mind as well as the heart. His topics range from global politics and economics to those between men and women in their household. Common sense dominates his thought. He shuns political correctness for the truth of life. He is a Master Teacher in many fields of thought�religion and psychology, sociology and anthropology, history and politics, literature and the humanities. He is a needed Counselor, for he knows himself, on the deepest of personal levels and he reveals that self to us, that we might be his beneficiaries.

All of which are represented in his Radical Spirituality�a balm for those who anguish in these troubling times of disinformation. As a shaman himself, he calls too for a Radical Mythology to override the traditional mythologies of racial supremacy that foster war and injustice. If you want to reshape (clean up, raise) your consciousness, this is a book to savor, to read again, and again�to pass onto a friend or lover.
�Rudolph Lewis, Editor, ChickenBones: A Journal

Marvin X is available for readings, lectures and performance. jmarvinx@yahoo.com
www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com

Catch Marvin X at the Harlem, NY Book Fair, July 20, 2013, National Writers Union Booth!

Marvin X interviewed at the, March, 2013, Black Power Babies Conversation, Philadelphia, PA., event produced by his daughter Muhammida El Muhajir, Sun In Leo.com

He also participated in the Black Love Lives Conference (produced by Nisa Ra), University of Penn, reading with Philly's living legend, pianist Alfie Pollitt, at the Cleft Jazz Club. 

Eldridge Cleaver: My friend the Devil, a memoir 

by Marvin X, Black Bird Press, Berkeley CA 

2009

Marvin X wrote his memoir of Eldridge Cleaver in three weeks, posting a chapter per day on the internet. See www.nathanielturner.com. 

The Wisdom of Plato Negro 

parables/fables

"Marvin X is Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland."--Ishmael Reed

His most recent book is The Wisdom of Plato Negro, parables/fables, Black Bird Press, Berkeley, 2012. President Davis and Reginald James, students at Marvin X's Academy of da Corner, Oakland.
President is now at Howard University, Reginald at UC Berkeley. Pictured at Sankofa Books, Washington DC.

Muhammida el Muhajir produced this event at Oakland's Frank H. Ogawa Plaza. Daughter hired him to write a poem dedicated to Oakland native Keyshia Cole. Marvin X opened for Keyshia Cole with the poem, accompanied by Academy students Aries Jordan and her sister, Toya.

Marvin X and his mentor, the legendary poet-philosopher-musician Sun RA

Crisis of Black Intellectuals and the Drs. Julia and Nathan Hare Archives

One would think the sale of the Hare archives would be a small matter, especially when we consider that Dr. Nathan Hare is the father of Black Studies with a PhD in sociology and psychology. How many professors of Black Studies, aka Pan African Studies, Africana Studies, Diaspora Studies, Negro Studies, have benefited from the ground breaking work and sacrifice of Dr. Hare who was thrown out of Howard University (he was preceded by the removal of the great sociologist Dr. E. Franklin Frazier, author of the classic Black Bourgeoisie, Hare's writing continued the tradition of lambasting the Black bourgeoise with his now classic The Black Anglo-Saxons).

Dr. Hare was then invited to be the first chair of a Black Studies program on a major white university campus at San Francisco State College, now University. The longest strike in American academic history ensued with violence and imprisonment of protesters. In the end, Dr. Hare was removed from his chair and what followed can only be described as a watered down, Miller Lite version of Black Studies that has persisted ever since, although hundreds of "tenured nigguhs" benefited from the struggle of students and radical professors like Dr. Hare who were purged from white and negro academia.

Dr. Hare bemoaned recently that is was pitiful that of the hundreds of Black Studies departments in America, not one was able to hire him, as though his blackness was simply unforgivable. We wonder will his archives suffer the same fate. Black academics have shown little desire to help us with the project to have his archives placed in a secure institution. A few have given contacts with curators at various institutions, but their interest in aiding has been Miller Lite, some of these intellectuals simply disappeared from the radar screen after professing they would be helpful with the organization and acquisition of the archives.

It has been suggested the price is too high, but after a life of de facto house arrest and black or rather white listing, why should the Hare archives go for peanuts, especially when the collection is substantial, over 200 cartons of letters, manuscripts, notes attached to news clippings, margin notes in books, records of his clinical psychology practice, photos, notebooks, speech notes and drafts, published articles in magazines, newspapers and books, including his collection of Black Scholar Magazine, of which he was the founding publisher,  awards and honors, audio and video tapes, hundreds of floppy disks, etc.

And let us not leave out the public career of his wife, Dr. Julia Hare, known as the female Malcolm X. One need only view her performance on Tavis Smiley's State of the Black World. Both are living legends of the movement toward better male/female relations. They founded Black Male/female Relations magazine, Kupenda or Black Love groups. The subject of Nathan Hare's psychology dissertation was Black Male/female relations. Their 57 year marriage is testament they know how to have successful male/female relations and should be honored for demonstrating Black Love Lives (Nisa Ra film).

We call upon Black academics to use their resources and contacts to assist with the sale of these important archives of two of the most important intellectuals North American Africans have produced.
In short, the price is negotiable so make us an offer we can't refuse. Dr. Hare has asked me to consummate this project at the earliest possible date. We call upon you for your immediate assistance.
Let me hear from you ASAP.
Sincerely,

Marvin X, M.A.
Agent, the Drs. Nathan and Julia Hare Archives
510-200-4164
jmarvinx@yahoo.com

P.S. At the very least, intellectuals and academics are urged to write letters of support, calling upon academic institutions and/or private institutions take a serious look at acquiring the archives. They are now available for viewing. Call me for an appointment. MX

Notes from the Master Teacher of Black Studies

Dr. M,

Also folded in the book with the birthday greeting card to me from Max Stanford, aka Dr. Muhammad Ahmed (most feared black militant by FBI in the late 1960s) is a note from a boy named Cadence, saying “I love Dr. Julia Hare.”

Nathan

From: Nathan Hare [mailto:nhare@pacbell.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 6:01 AM
To: Marvin X Jackmon (jmarvinx@yahoo.com)
Subject: Endless Archives and Bottomless Pockets

Marvin,

I notice you left the birthday card from Max Stanford (Muhammad Ahmed), I guess because it was tucked in one of a stack of books. One of them, “Black Writers of America: A Comprehensive Anthology” (Macmillan, 1972), has me and Tolson in it (pre-Great Debaters, Wiley College, where he practiced and James Farmer was a student before Tolson moved on to Langston and left debating for poetry and drama, aiming at Broadway and hitting Hollywood); indeed the editors   discuss Tolson and celebrate him as one of my teachers in the preface to my essay, “The Challenge of a Black Scholar,” I see they gave it a section all by itself, “Essay” under  “Part VI: The Present Generation: Since 1945,” though near the tail end of the book, just before Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver, and The Blues, in that order.

Talk about black studies, which they also mentioned, the article was also reprinted in a number of places, like such other articles as “Black Ecology,” in a number of different languages around the world. In fact I just got a call on Friday from a University of Pennsylvania black female professor  of ethics (as you know they worry about what’s right and wrong -- while I worry about what’s right, I know what’s wrong ), wanting to interview me on the article. I told her I’d have to take a look at it and get back to you, because I’ve forgotten what I said in it, especially since I was writing it while I was in jail in San Francisco (they didn’t let me keep anything but a paperback I had with me when arrested, Karl Mannheims “Idelogy and Utopia.” No pencil, so I used my thumbnail to mark off passages I wanted to quote or paraphrase.  But I didn’t just use Mannheim, lest black intellectuals say it’s not black enough, not even black studies in the first place. And anyway, how come you didn’t mention Moses.

I also don’t want you to take the book, “Medicine in the Ghetto” too lightly, not even my essay in it. Its editor, John Norman, was the director of the conference put on by the Harvard Medical School at Wentworth-by-the-Sea in New Hampshire in the late spring of 1969, but he was black, as were most of the participants. On my panel was the now late Charles Sanders, then the managing editor of Ebony magazine, when magazines were magazines and print media was print, The chairman of the panel, I believe, was the president of Meharry Medical College (I know he was the one who invited me). I forget the other person or two.

Some people think black studies is equivalent only to ancient history (“contributionism” a term I coined in the early 1960s at Howard – I note that white individuals have taken it up but could find no reference before the early 1960s, and certainly I coined it for myself and my students at Howard. Indeed circa 1970 the black sociologist, West Indian, at Harvard, wrote an essay in the” Crimson,” in which he referred to me and “Contributionsm” but added two categories. Jancie Hale Bensin in her book on black children, their cultural roots and learnin styles, summarizes Patterson’s  article but gives “contributionism” not to me as Patterson had, but to him. (Patterson may have mentioned me but kept the term for himself, a common ploy of black intellectuals (creatures who think black studies is equivalent only to an account of how  the first physician or something was black, Imhotep, and arguments over the proper spelling of his name, Immutef, or the first god was black (wouldn’t you know it?), the first devil, to the first person to make a spool or a piece of thread, etcetera. That’s one reason black studies and black intellectuality in general got bogged down and locked in antiquity from 1969 to 2009; and only came out to wail and bash the first black president for not picking them up and flinging them into the kingdom of snow white liberation.

As regards the stuff in my storage in the office building, I admit I wasn’t up to the challenge of taking those heavy file cabinets of files packed and crammed in there last Sunday morning. Don’t know whether that’s worth just going one day back again and wrenching the cabinets out and seeing what if anything we need to keep that’s not in current use. If so we would need Ali or some such heavyweight to help, I think, to boost the meager might of two old men and a pretty woman or two; although it was precisely two women of the physical stature to rival Ali who crammed them in there in the first place. The ringleader was a literary enthusiast and skimmed and got away with my big volume of the complete works of Shakespeare and God knows what. We weren’t thinking about archives -- at least I wasn’t. It’s like one continual try in a marathon game of finders keepers.

It’s good you’re making a movement out of the Archives Project, just don’t make me the sacrificial lamb. I’m trying to work my way out of this quagmire, this nightmare of deprivation, before I wrap my smothering blanket around me and lie down to pleasant dreams.

Hotep (is that black enough for you?),

Nathan