Last year's 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Black Arts Movement at Laney College. Left to right: unidentified person, Dr. Nathan Hare, father of Black & Ethnic Studies; Nefertiti Jackmon, Naima Joy, Mayor Libby Schaaf, Jah Amiel; next row: Earl Davis, Val Serrant, Michelle LaChaux, Renaldo Ricketts, Aquella Lewis, James Gayles, Marvin X, Paradise Jah Love, Aries Jordan, Laney College President, Elnora T. Webb, Samantha Akwei
Please forgive me for
accusing you of supporting police abuse under the color of law. My
charge has no basis in fact, yet it is clearly the community perception
that you are more aligned with the police than with the people. The
Black Lives Matter people clearly feel this way. My focus is on the
Black Arts Movement Business District. As per the police, I would like
you to read about my fifty year relationship with the police beginning
with the Black Panther Party's response to the Richmond police killing
of Denzil Dowell that was featured in the first issue of the Black Panther Newspaper.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf responds to Marvin X Letter of 1/20/16
Dear Marvin,
Thank
you for sharing all this. I was particularly sad to read about your
son's suicide. I was also sad to read the Black Lives Matter press
release as it contained so many factual inaccuracies. I recognize we
have much work to do to recover from our shameful past. Please read this
article about how Oakland is being recognized nationally - including by
the White House - for its reforms to rebuild community trust.
http://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Obama-official-says-Oakland-s-police-department-6483838.php
. I recognize national accolades doesn't matter as much as the
sentiment from our own community and I will work even harder on earning
that trust. I look forward to continuing the conversation.
Best,
Libby
Marvin X: Part Two: My life in the Global Village--Notes of an Artistic Freedom Fighter
If
my memory is correct, the Black Panthers were at the Black House, San
Francisco, when the first issue of the Black Panther Newspaper hit the
press. Eldridge Cleaver and I had founded the Black House as a
political/cultural center on Broderick Street, 1967, and after I
introduced him to Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, co-founders of the BPP
and he became Minister of Information, the Black House morphed into the
San Francisco Headquarters of the BPP. The Black House as a cultural
center collapsed from ideological differences so the artists eased on
down the road, including playwright Ed Bullins, Ethna Wyatt and myself.
Ed Bullins fled to New York as did many artists, especially musicians,
whom I discovered, especially when I hit Harlem myself, were more
politically astute than the so called politicos, especially the Panthers
who did not recover from their anti-art or war against "cultural
nationalists" stance until they attended the Pan African Cultural
Festival in Algeria.
But before I departed Black
House, I saw the BPP newspaper being laid out in Cleaver's room adjacent
to mine. The BPP trip to Sacramento was planned at Black House. I
could hear their planning session from my bedroom that Mrs. Amina Baraka
described as Spartan compared to Eldridge's that was "high tech", i.e.,
he had a speaker phone! She was pregnant with the Baraka's first child,
Obalaji, while at the Black House that was visited by such artists and
politicos as Sonia Sanchez, Askia Toure, Sarah Webster Fabio, Avotcja,
Emory Douglas, Samuel Napier, Judy Juanita, Chicago Art Ensemble,
Reginald Lockett, Ellendar Barnes, George Murray, and a host of others
too numerous to remember, including Alprentice Bunchy Carter, Cleaver's
close associate from Soledad Prison.
Alprentice Bunchy Carter
Carter was one of most handsome Black men
in the BLM, a former leader of the seven thousand member
Los Angeles Slauson Street gang, poet
and Cleaver's co-chair of the Soledad Prison
Black Culture Club that was the beginning
of the American Prison Movement.
The Black Dialogue Magazine brothers who visited the Soledad Prison
Black Culture Club, chaired by Eldridge Cleaver and Bunchy Carter, 1966.
Left to Right: Aubrey LaBrie, Marvin X, Abdul Sabrey, Al Young, Arthur
Sheridan (founding editor of Black Dialogue) and Duke Williams. Most of
us were students at San Francisco State College/University when we visited
Soledad
Prison. There was thus a unity in the Black Liberation Movement between
students, prison inmates, Black intellectuals, artists and activists.
There can be no revolution until all sectors of the
community unite and become one fist, i.e., youth, students, workers, intellectuals,
artists, women, progressive bourgeoisie and the spiritual leaders.
The staff of Black Dialogue Magazine visited the club
at Cleaver's invitation that we received from
his lawyer/lover Attorney Beverley Axelrod,
to whom he dedicated Soul on Ice and promised
to marry upon his release. She smuggled his manuscript
out of Soledad in her legal papers. She won a percentage of
royalties by default after Cleaver went into exile from America.
Ironically, a few days before I performed his memorial service
in Oakland, her Pacifica house slid down the hill in a mudslide.
I didn't know she was at the memorial until years later when I
viewed the video of the memorial.
Bunchy was killed in the BSU meeting room on the campus of UCLA, along
with BPP member John Huggins, supposedly by members
of Ron Karenga's US organization, although Geronimo Pratt
absolves US of this twin murder. For sure, it was a Cointelpro affair,
have no doubt about this. See Senator Church's hearings on Cointelpro
and the Black Movement, including the Civil Rights Movement.
Comrade John Huggins
Black Panthers in Sacramento
The
climax in my relationship with Cleaver and the Panthers occurred when I
got into a confrontation with Lil' Bobby Hutton over the youth club in
the basement. True, the youth were out of control and Hutton told
me,"The Supreme Commander, i.e. Huey Newton, said close it down because
it could be an excuse for the pigs to raid Black House." Of course Lil'
Bobby and the BPP were correct, I was being emotional. We had received
information from some progressive Black bourgeoisie sisters that the
Black House was indeed going to be raided as they had information the
police knew the youth were taking liberties with women or young girls,
playing hookie from school and partying in the basement. Years later
though, I met those youth who were grown and quite conscious culturally,
and they thanked me for their Black House experience.
I
identified with the youth and was their mentor, so I told Hutton, "Fuck
the Supreme Commander! I'm not closing down shit!" I could see in his
eyes, Hutton wanted to get me that instant but restrained himself,
saying, "We'll deal with you later, dude!" That night all I heard was
the click of 45 automatics outside my door. I wasn't intimidated and
didn't give a fuck. I knew I was just as crazy as Huey, Bobby and
Eldridge, but shortly after the incident, Eldridge evicted Ed Bullins,
Ethna and myself. Ethna and I joined the Nation of Islam. After dropping
out of San Francisco State College/now University, I was drafted but
under Panther and Nation of Islam influence, I fled to Toronto, Canada,
later Mexico City and Belize, from which I was deported and spent five
months in jail and Federal prison at Terminal Island. The Panthers said,
"We must not only resist the draft but resist arrest as well! Actually,
no matter where I was, whether in exile or prison, the task was the
same, i.e., to teach the deaf, dumb and blind the reality of our
condition. So I did so in Toronto, Mexico City and Belize, Central
America. And for doing so, one can be killed, exiled or jailed.
Somehow
God saved me to tell this story. Years later, San Francisco County Jail
Sheriff Charles Smith (who threw Muhammad Speaks newspaper in my cell
during the three months I spent in jail at 350 Bryant Street--my BAM co-worker Ethna (Hurriyah) brought them on her visits) told me he
attended an Interpol Conference in Belize at which they discussed my
presence in Central America.
The killing of Denzil
Dowell in Richmond was the first case of pigs killing North American
Africans the BPP tackled. Fifty years later, where are we and the
police? It seems another Denzil Dowell is murdered by the pigs every day
coast to coast. Fifty years ago the Panthers took up arms to defend the
community. Before them were brothers in the South such as the Deacons
for Defense and Robert Williams in North Carolina (Negroes With Guns).
Since
the BPP took up arms, many pigs were killed and many many Black Panther
Party members were murdered by the pigs. When Eldridge Cleaver returned
from exile as a Born Again Christian, I traveled with him throughout
the Western hemisphere, America, Canada, Jamaica. After giving his
testimony about finding Jesus Christ in the moon, the white Christians
would embrace him and confessed they used to hate him and Blacks in
general but since they were Born Again, they no longer hated him nor
Blacks. On one occasion the police confessed they had murder squads who
killed Panthers in particular and Blacks in general. The pigs and
Cleaver embraced, both exclaiming, "Praise the Lord!"
Because
the Born Again pigs and Cleaver confessed their new found love for each
other, do not think they trusted him one iota. Before he had me
organize his ministry independent of the whites, there were white Born
Again Christians who traveled with us to maintain their surveillance of
him. After all, he was the Black superstar on the white Born Again
Christian circuit. Charles Colson of Watergate was the other, along with
Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Pat Bone, Jim and Tammy
Baker, et al. I met most of them on more than one occasion. Since Black
Christians were mortally afraid to work with Eldridge, as his chief of
staff, I hired a crew of fearless Black Muslims that he fronted off as
"heathens" he'd converted to Christianity. After giving his testimony,
we'd usually have dinner with the white Christians (for a long time, he
didn't deal with Black Christians), and they would ultimately turn to me
with the question, "Marvin, when did you find the Lord?" And being an
actor from Black Arts Movement Theatre, I answered, "One Tuesday night!"
The Christians would also ease up to me with the question, "Marvin, is
Cleaver for real, did he really see Jesus Christ in the moon?" Of course
I said yes. They also wanted to know if I was his bodyguard, even
though he was twice my size at the time. I told them I his
travel companion and photographer, although he did provide me with a 45
automatic I carried in my camera bag.
When he went to
Vancouver, Canada for a speaking engagement, they shook us down at the
airport returning to the US and shook us down a second time when we
arrived at San Francisco airport. They weren't sure Cleaver was truly
Born Again and might still be a Communist dedicated to destroying
America.
But it was a different feeling having the
police greet us in a friendly manner when we arrived at the airport of
various cities and accompany us to his engagements. I recently had a
positive experience with the police while in Newark, New Jersey for the
funeral of Amiri Baraka and also when I returned for the inauguration of
his son, Ras Baraka, as Mayor of Newark NJ.
During the
funeral, the police were all over the Baraka house as friends and
security. Even before becoming Mayor, Ras had told me, "Marvin, we got
brothers with legal guns on our side!" Indeed, many Black police
supported the Baraka family, the "first family" of Newark, NJ.
Mrs.
Amina Baraka told me that since her son became Mayor, the killing of
Blacks by the police has stopped. Now it is only Blacks killing Blacks.
During the time I was in Newark, I called California to tell friends
there was a more positive relationship between the people and the
police. They said I was crazy, this was unimaginable. I was tripping,
they said. But it was true none the less, the antagonistic relationship
between the people and the police in Newark was subsiding.
In
Oakland, I recently asked my childhood friend, Paul Cobb, one of the
elders in Oakland politics, are there any Black police on our side? He
was not able to answer the question. In my mind, there must be some
Black officers on the side of the people. They can't all be pigs,
devils, beasts in blue uniforms. We know some of them can be won over to
the cause of the people. We saw this in Egypt during the short lived
Arab Spring. For a moment, the police and people became one.
As
we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party, we need
to think about how we can come to a more civilized relationship with the
police, even if it is symbiotic, it need not be totally negative. But
the police cannot be allowed to continue their murder of Black people
and other minorities under the color of law. Every human being in
American has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
And every human being has the right to self defense. Must we conclude
the police are constitutionally unable to restrain themselves from
killing us? Or is it possible for them to reach a higher level of
understanding than the beast plane? If they can do it in Newark, they
can do it in Oakland and Ferguson. Isaiah said let us reason together.
We
know we cannot outgun the police. We saw in the 60s and we see now, the
police have plenty back up, i.e., National Guard, Army, Air Force,
Navy, FBI, Homeland Security, CIA, snitches and agent provocateurs. Yes,
the Panthers in particular and the Black community in general suffered a
military defeat during the 60s and 70s. Guns weren't the only weapon:
there was disinformation, chemical (drugs) and germ warfare(HIV/STDs),
toxic food and water.
Isn't it time to do something
that works? Shall we continue doing the same thing but expect different
results, the mark of insanity?
Fifty years later, it is
almost impossible for me to attend rallies against the police for
murdering our young men and women. I applaud people like Oakland's Cat
Brooks,Chepus Johnson and the Black Lives Matter Movement. Thank God
they have the energy. After fifty years, I'm emotionally and mentally
drained, especially after losing my own son to suicide. Imagine, on
psycho drugs, he walked into a train, a brilliant young man who
graduated from UC Berkeley, attended Harvard and studied in Syria at the
University of Damascus. Dr. Nathan Hare says suicide and homicide are
but different sides of the same coin, often situational disorders caused
oppression. Often homicides are suicides because the person didn't have
the never to kill himself so he made someone else do the job. Franz
Fanon said the only way the oppressed can regain their mental health is
by engaging in revolution to end oppression. Revolution is seizing
power. Ras Baraka has demonstrated this in Newark, NJ. And he was
blessed with revolutionary parents, so he is well trained for his
mission to transform Newark, NJ, a city much like Oakland.
Newark, NJ Mayor Ras Baraka and Marvin X
For
sure, we are at war with the oppressor and the police are his first
line of defense. Many of us are in denial we are at war until one of our
children are killed. The tragedy is that there is no Black family in
America that has not been impacted by police actions under the color of
law, not to mention incarceration.
We know for a fact police behavior is quite different in the white community than in our community.
I've
lived among white people in Castro Valley and they don't even treat
Black people the same as they treat us a few miles away in Oakland. The
son of a rich friend of mine was repeatedly stopped for speeding and
driving without a license in Castro Valley. Did the police kill the boy?
No. Did they give him a ticket? No. They called his father to come get
the car and his son. Yes, they knew the father was a rich Black man so
they treated him with respect. Once the youth had a party that got loud
so neighbors called the police. Of course the youth were drinking and
smoking. When the police came, they only wanted to know if there was an
adult at the house. When I came to the door, the police said, "Are you
the adult here, Sir?" I said, "Yes, Sir." The police said, "Good night,
Sir."
Now we know money ain't gonna save you all the
time, ask Harvard's Skip Gates! But we know if those armed white men in
Oregon were Black, they would have surrendered or they'd be dead by now.
Still we must make a way out of no way. We cannot continue going to
funerals of our children from police homicide under the color of law or
Black on Black homicide due to our addiction to white supremacy. We must
arise from this morass of savagery. We must regain our self respect and
demand others respect us.
I
have called for the Red, Black and Green flag to fly up and down the
Black Arts Movement Business District along the 14th Street corridor,
downtown Oakland. Saluting the flag should help us regain our mental
equilibrium and make others, including police, recognize we are a nation
of people and must be respected as such. I often give the example of
the gay/lesbian flag that flies down Market Street in San Francisco as
one goes toward the gay/lesbian community. By the time one gets to the
community, one gets the feeling that we must have respect for this
community and not engage in homophobic language and behavior. It should
and must be the same in the BAM Business District. This must be a sacred
space that we must respect. And this vibration must spread throughout
our community. I suggest the Red, Black and Green fly throughout our
community to let ourselves and the world know we are a people with
cultural consciousness, who originated from the womb of civilization. It
will help us understand when we kill our brothers and sisters, we kill
ourselves. When others kill us, they kill themselves as well. James
Baldwin said, "The murder of my child will not make your child safe!"
--Marvin X
1/17/16
Marvin
X is a poet, playwright, essayist, organizer, one of the founders of
the Black Arts Movement. He attended Oakland's Merritt College along
with Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. He introduced Eldridge Cleaver to the
Black Panthers. He was a member of the Negro Student Association/Black
Student Union at San Francisco State University, 1964. Marvin co-founded
Black Arts West Theatre, San Francisco, 1966, Black House, San
Francisco, 1967, and was a member of Harlem's New Lafayette Theatre,
1968. He taught at Fresno State University, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego,
San Francisco State University, Mills College, Laney and Merritt
Colleges, Oakland; University of Nevada, Reno. He lectures at colleges
and universities coast to coast. Marvin is prolific: he's written 30
books. His current project is the Black Arts Movement Business District,
downtown Oakland. He is in the Black Panther film Vanguard of the
Revolution directed by Stanley Nelson. See his memoir of Eldridge
Cleaver: My friend the Devil, Black Bird Press, 2009, Berkeley CA.
Press Release from Black Lives Matter
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Chinyere Tutashinda 510-698-3800 x409 October 29, 2015
Mayor Schaaf Needs Better Plan for Oakland’s Black Residents
Black Lives Matter Bay Area Responds to 2015 State of the City Address
Oakland, CA. — Mayor Libby Schaaf delivered her first State of the City
address yesterday, laying out four priorities for Oakland: community
safety, equitable jobs and housing, responsible infrastructure, and
responsive and transparent government. Despite use of terms like
“safety,” “equitable,” “responsible” and “transparent,” Mayor Schaaf’s
policies have not lived up to these values and won’t make Black lives
matter.
Instead of fostering community safety, Schaaf has
overseen the oversized and brutal policing of Oakland’s Black residents
and other people of color. This summer alone, six Black men were killed
by police officers in Oakland. While Schaaf indicated that citizen
complaints against OPD have been declining, she failed to acknowledge
why. Residents of Oakland have lost faith in the review process, and
have repeatedly demanded a community review process with real
enforcement power. Schaaf’s solution is to hire more officers, which
will not, and has not ever, increased safety for residents.
Instead of developing equitable jobs and housing, Mayor Schaaf’s
proposal to build 15,000 new housing units includes only 1,000 (fewer
than 7 percent) affordable housing units. In the face of skyrocketing
rents, building more expensive homes will not alleviate the health and
wealth disparities that disproportionately disadvantage Black residents
of Oakland. Black residents have long demanded rent control with clear
definitions of low income, a moratorium on foreclosures, community
benefits agreements for all new development, and a Black business and
arts district in East and West Oakland.
Instead of investing in
responsible infrastructure, Mayor Schaaf has legitimized the Bay Area
Rapid Transit Board’s continuous pursuit of charges against the Black
Friday 14, a team of Black Lives Matter activists in Oakland that
participated in a nationwide direct action to call attention to the
unchecked murders of Black people by law enforcement officers. This is
not only a gross miscarriage of justice, but also shifts accountability
from BART officials who allow their armed officers to kill and brutalize
Black bodies with impunity. Mayor Schaaf and the District Attorney’s
office must drop the charges, now.
Instead of promoting
responsive and transparent government, in response to community protests
against police violence toward Black women and girls, Mayor Libby
Schaaf passed a rule, without public process or proper notification,
forbidding protest after dark. As a result, hundreds of Black women and
girls were repeatedly attacked, teargassed and jailed by the OPD. The
ban stopped being enforced after large numbers of Oakland residents
refused to adhere to it, but remains on the books.
Despite the
dramatic inclusion of a large slide bearing the words Black Lives Matter
during her address—Schaaf failed, just as dramatically, to deliver real
solutions to the health, wealth and safety disparities that
disproportionately disadvantage Black residents of Oakland. In short,
Schaaf’s plan will hurt Black lives, not improve them.
Instead of
a plan that would improve the lives of Black Oakland residents, Schaaf
focused on turning Oakland into a “kinder, more inclusive tech hub”
through “tech-quity.” This catch phrase is being used to sell Oakland to
the highest bidder, while maintaining its brand. But Oakland’s record
of social activism, our history of Blackness, and our cultural
infrastructure is not a brand and is not for sale.
In a letter to
Uber executives, Schaaf defined tech-quity as providing “equitable
access to top-notch training and jobs for our residents and fostering
our local technology sector’s growth so it leads to shared prosperity.”
For Black residents of Oakland, there is no equity or prosperity in
plans that use policing and racial profiling, rising housing costs and
other environmental factors to force the migration of one set of poorer
residents to make room for another, wealthier, mostly whiter, set. We
need a plan for all of us.
###
Launched by Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors in 2012,
#BlackLivesMatter
is a unique contribution to oppose the extra-judicial killings of Black
people and win basic rights and dignity for all Black people,
everywhere. Black Lives Matter Bay Area is one of over 20 chapters in
and outside of the United States.
