Cointelpro is alive and well! Big Man Howard and Marvin X on Black Panther Party Minister of Distribution, Sam Napier

• 

Monday, May 16, 2016

All Power To The People!

Troi "PIG-STAR" Torain has now been encouraged by his family & friends in the NY & NJ police departments to not only promote Zulus to kill Zulus but he has also disrespected the memory of fallen Black Panther Comrades Sam Napier, Robert Webb, Sandra Pratt, Fred Benett & others who were killed during The FBI's COINTELPRO Orchestrated Split Of The BPP" and; 

This sellout is also encouraging the fools who participate in his social media circus aka "The Star Chamber" to "prevent" Bro. Shep from making any more future statements to the Black/New Afrikan Community that warns them to avoid the well documented divide & destroy tactics that the U.S. government illegally utilized during the 1970's in its COINTELPRO, CHESIMAR & NEWKILL operations to cause Panthers to kill other Panthers.

In conclusion, read the following materials and then view below Troi "PIG-STAR" Torains carefully edited below excerpt from last month's UZN public meeting on COINTELPRO to see exactly what this admitted operative for the NYPD and NJ Police is trying to do in order to create a blood bath in the streets of NYC.

I have pasted his E-mail address... thehater1964@yahoo.com for folks to address this negro idiot directly.

Peace,

Panther-Zulu Nation King Sadiki "Bro. Shep" Ojore Olugbala

Fred Bennett [BPP, PA] (? - 1971)
Assassinated: Victim of fratricide orchestrated by COINTELPRO following the internal "split" of the Party. Fragments of what was reported to be his remains were found February, 1971.

 Robert Webb [BPP] (1949 - 1971)
Assassinated: March 8, 1971 - Victim of FBI orchestrated fratricide following the internal "split" of the Party.

 Samuel Napier [BPP] (? - 1971)
Assassinated: April 17, 1971 by unknown assailants in retaliation of the murder of Robert Webb during the "split" of the Party.

 Sandra "Red" Pratt [BPP] (? - 1971)
Assassinated: November, 1971 in Los Angeles while visibly in her eighth month of pregnancy and stuffed in a garbage dumpster during the "split" of the Party.

Remembering Sam Napier – My Fallen Comrade 

In the middle of the New Haven trial of Bobby Seale, Erica Huggins, and the New Haven Panthers, in 1970, I received a very upsetting call from National Headquarters. The caller instructed me to go to New York and claim Sam Napier’s body and bring him home to California. This nearly floored me because they gave me no information about Sam’s death or any details about the circumstances surrounding it. Sam Napier was in charge of our newspaper’s distribution nationwide, as well as worldwide. Sam and I worked together in the early days of the Panther newspaper’s development. 

A very devoted Party member, Sam was a natural-born distribution and traffic manager. At any given time, he could tell you how many Panther newspapers were shipped to each city and chapter, when they were due to arrive, and by what means. He loved the Party and he loved his work in the Party. His death revealed to me the so-called split in the Party between the East Coast and the West Coast Panthers. A few months prior to Sam’s murder, a Panther by the name of Robert Webb was murdered on the streets of New York. Webb was originally from the west coast, but had been assigned to work in the New York Chapters. 

What happened after Webb’s murder was that the FBI, CIA, and the police fed false information via provocateur agents, to the New York Chapter of the BPP, telling them that West Coast Panthers had murdered Robert Webb. To me, it was obvious that Cointelpro had seized on the opportunity to drive a wedge in the Party, and kill a Panther Party member at the same time. I met up with Sam’s wife, Pauline Napier, who had flown in from the west coast to get her husband Sam’s body, and take him home. She had been to the medical examiner’s office and claimed him. Pauline then told us how Sam looked. I told her what Panthers had related to me about Sam’s death. They said that he had been held hostage in the Newspaper office, tortured, then shot, and the building had been set on fire. 

During the days of the Panthers, because one had so little time, you got to know a person pretty fast, mostly by their attitude, and by their talents and work. Sam was also a great teacher and he built very strong cadres, mostly by his example. I never saw Sam down, he was always cheerful in his work, steady, dependable, and dedicated to the idea of putting theory into practice. He would only get irritated when the Chapters didn’t send in their receipts and always had a ready smile, and the words: “Circulate to Educate!” Sam was the main reason that the paper soon had a 200,000 plus copies per week distribution. Sam and I met when I was Editor of the BPP newspaper, and although I soon went on to other responsibilities, we continued to see each other frequently and I was always amazed at his organization, discipline, and consistency. We met during the course of great struggles in our lives. I have often wondered where this great person came from. Where did he attend school? Did he have sisters and brothers? Sam was my friend as well as my comrade in arms. I still miss him after 40- odd years. But then, I like to think that we will meet again and have all the time we need to talk of such things. 

Long live the memory of Sam Napier! 

All Power to the People! 

Elbert “Big Man” Howard 

Forestville, CA February 2012

Marvin X on Samuel Napier

I remember the day Samuel Napier walked into the Black House, the political/cultural center founded by Eldridge Cleaver and myself in San Francisco, 1967. Sam was working at a co-op supermarket in Hunters Point but wanted more than a job in his life. He was sincere and just wanted to get involved. His attitude was the same as another brother who came to the Black House looking to get involved: Emory Douglas,  who became Black Party Minister of Culture. Emory came into the Black House reciting an original poem Revolutionary Things. 

Cover art by Emory

Amiri Baraka by Emory

As per Sam, we were totally devastated when we learned how he was murdered in the COintellpro inspired battle between the two BPP armies. And the bitterness has continued to this day. When I produced my play One Day in the Life in Brooklyn at Sista's Place, 1996, featuring the scene of my last meeting with Huey P. Newton, the December 12 people sat me down and said, "Marvin X, we love you but we don't give a damn about Huey Newton, this is Eldridge's turf, this is where his army was and is."(See the panel discussion entitled Drugs, Art and Revolution, Sista's Place, 1996, featuring Sam Anderson, Sonia Sanchez, Elombe Brath, Mrs Amina Baraka, Mr. Amiri Baraka (RIP), and Marvin X, hosted by December 12 member Omawale Clay, Youtube.)

As you may know, I introduced Eldridge to Huey and Bobby and it was sad to see how Cointellpro helped divide brother against brother to the point of murder, brutal murder in the case of Sam Napier who was killed and set on fire. As Mao said, "The reactionaries will never put down their butcher knives, they will never turn into Buddha heads!" So the struggle continues.

We must simply practice eternal vigilance until victory. And we must pass the baton to our children, especially the Black Arts/Black Power/Black Panther Babies. Newark, New Jersey's Mayor Ras Baraka is a model of a child who understands his mission is to continue the tradition of Black Liberation, which simply means seizing power for the people.

--Marvin X, Black Arts Movement
5/17/16

 

October, 20-23 Black Panther Party 50th Anniversary at Oakland Museum of California.

Writers: Join the National Writers Union

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Black Arts Movement Theatre, West: Dewey Redman - Dewey Time, Happy Birth Day, Dewey!

Saxophonist Walter Dewey Redman
was born on May 17, 1931 in Fort
Worth, Texas.

He received his initial band
training at I.M. Terrell High
School where he performed
with fellow students Ornette
Coleman, Prince Lasha and Charles
Moffett.

Redman played in Ornette Coleman's
groups and with Keith Jarrett
and then formed his own band "Old
and New Dreams" with fellow Ornette
alumni Don Cherry, Charlie Haden,
and Ed Blackwell.

Here's a clip from the 2001 documentary
"Dewey Time" about his life and music
PLUS a performance with friends and
collaborators Don Cherry, Ed Blackwell
and Charlie Haden.

Marvin X on Dewey Redman and Black Arts Movement Theatre, West

When we established Black Arts West Theatre, 1966, in San Francisco's Fillmore District, across the street from Tree's Pool Hall and around the corner from the Sun Reporter Newspaper, Turk and Fillmore, we, actors, playwrights, Ed Bullins, Duncan Barber, Carl Bossiere, Hillary Broadus, Ethna Wyatt, Sandra Williams, Danny Glover and myself, were soon joined by musicians. Among them were Dewey Redman, Rafael Donald Garrett, Earle Davis, BJ, Oliver Jackson, et al. They held concerts but most importantly they accompanied our plays in the style of what we now call "ritual theatre", i.e., they were free to play on stage, or move about in the audience or go out on the street to the accompaniment of car horns and all the sounds on Fillmore Street that was often bumper to bumper cars and sidewalks full of people, Harlem of the West, like 125th Street and Lenox Ave. As we know redevelopment (gentrification) destroyed the cultural and economic vitality of the Fillmore. Former San Francisco Mayor Joe Alioto apologized for destroying the Fillmore. And this is why the land trust must be employed in the coming Black Arts Movement Business District in Oakland.

Dewey and his fellow musicians inspired us with their freedom and we began to do improvisation with our scripts, especially while under the influence of marijuana, i.e., we would transcend the script and free-style for a moment of two, then return to the script, call it jazz-drama. 

While we loved the musicians, we had ideological differences with many if not most of them because we considered ourselves Black Nationalists and they had white women, which we found embarrassing, especially in the box office during the jazz concerts, e.g., the Monte Waters Big Band. But we survived our differences and I would sometimes visit them at their homes, in particular Donald Rafael Garrett, Oliver Johnson and Dewey Redman. Surely, today we are happy Dewey's woman gave birth to Joshua Redman. Happy birthday, Dewey!
--Marvin X
5/17/16

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20 Black Poets

20 Black Poets You Should Know (and Love)

Poetry lovers and novices alike can connect with verses by this list of extraordinary wordsmiths.

By: Hope Wabuke

Posted: April 16 2015
The Root

Gwendolyn Brooks

Brooks, who was the poet laureate of Illinois, became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her second collection, Annie Allen. Her keen insight and musical language make her writing required reading for students of poetry today. “We Real Cool” is a good place to begin.

Wikimedia Commons

Langston Hughes

“What happens to a dream deferred?” asked Hughes in one of his best-known lines. His name became synonymous with the Harlem Renaissance, and his work has inspired subsequent generations of black poets.

Wikimedia Commons

Audre Lorde

The unapologetic Lorde is equally known for her poetry and essays. In every medium, she transcended form and used words to dismantle systems of oppression.

Audre Lorde with writer Meridel Le Sueur (Wikimedia Commons)

Rita Dove

A Pulitzer Prize winner and the country’s first black poet laureate, Dove deftly weaves together subject matter that is both personal and political. She continues to shape the conversation on modern poetry as an editor and professor.

Wikimedia Commons

The Dark Room Collective

This community of writers gave voice to the next generation of black American poets. It was founded nearly 30 years ago in Boston by Thomas Sayers Ellis, Sharan Strange and Janice Lowe, who were dedicated to nurturing and supporting black poetics. It grew to include Major Jackson, Carl Phillips, Tisa Bryant and Kevin Young, along with Pulitzer Prize winners Tracy K. Smith and Natasha Tretheway, who was also honored as the poet laureate of the United States.

Wikimedia Commons

Lucille Clifton

Clifton won the National Book Award, was once the poet laureate of Maryland and earned two nominations for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work, legendary for its extremely modern minimalism, revolved around spirituality, womanhood and African-American identity.

Wikimedia Commons

June Jordan

As with Audre Lorde, Jordan’s political acts of speaking truth to power through creative expression were shaped in essays, poems and stories. Lorde, the founder of Poetry for the People, has continued to inspire students through her teaching since her death in 2002.

Wikimedia Commons

Cave Canem

Cornelius Eady and Toi Derricotte are the founding visionaries behind this Brooklyn, N.Y.-based organization that showcases the brilliance of black poets. Together with founding faculty members Elizabeth Alexander, Afaa Michael Weaver, Michele Elliot, Terrance Hayes and Sarah Micklem, Cave Canem hosted its first retreat in 1996. During the past two decades, Eady and Derricotte have created a safe space for black poets, often marginalized in traditional literary spaces, to nurture one another.

Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady (Facebook)

Derek Walcott

Walcott’s first poem, “1944,” consisting of 44 lines of free verse, was published when he was just 14 years old. For a lifetime of poetic expression, he received the Nobel Prize in literature in 1992. The committee called his work “a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment.”

Wikimedia Commons

Claudia Rankine

A razor-sharp intellect reinventing the lyric poem and the use of documentary style in poetry, Rankine often turns a close eye to the intricacies of macro- and microaggressions in the United States. Her latest book, Citizen: An American Lyric, was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Wikimedia Commons

Nikky Finney

Finney, winner of the National Book Award for her fifth book of poems, Head Off & Split, is also a formidable educator and mentor to young poets.

Alice Walker

Walker wrote the first of many books of poetry when she was a senior at Sarah Lawrence College. Active in the civil rights movement, a former columnist at Ms. magazine and co-founder of a feminist publishing company, she has long been a staunch advocate for social justice.

Peter Kramer/Getty Images

Kwame Dawes

The author of 12 books of poetry, Dawes is Chancellor’s Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and editor-in-chief of famed literary journal Prairie Schooner. He empowers the next generation of black poets through his work with the Calabash International Literary Festival, Cave Canem and the African Poetry Book Fund.

Wikimedia Commons

Nikki Giovanni

A star of the Black Arts Movement, Giovanni is one of America’s best-selling poets. She paid it forward by founding the publishing company NikTom Ltd. to promote African-American female writers and inspires young poets through teaching and accessible, dynamic verse.

Wikimedia Commons

Ntozake Shange

Shange’s choreopoem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf revolutionized both literature and theater. Nearly 40 years after its first performance, it continues to incite and inspire audiences.

Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

Maya Angelou

Considered to be more inspirational than literary, Angelou’s work popularized African-American poetry like none before it.

Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images

Sonia Sanchez

The author of 18 books of poetry, Sanchez has had an illustrious writing career. In the 1970s she was also instrumental in introducing black-studies courses into university curricula, something we take for granted today.

Angelina Weld Grimké

Grimké’s poems, essays, stories and plays made her a pivotal figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Her work often highlighted the desperate conditions of black women and children. Born in 1880, Grimké is credited with being the first African-American woman to write a publicly performed play.

Wikimedia Commons

Saeed Jones

Last year Jones published his first full-length poetry book, the critically acclaimed Prelude to Bruise. The BuzzFeed editor has also funneled his talent into the creation of a literary journal and a $12,000 fellowship for emerging writers.

Twitter

Jean Toomer

His masterwork, Cane, is a meditation on the black American experience, inspired by his return to the South after his family’s migration north. There, Toomer witnessed lynchings and other racial violence and vividly expressed their horrors in his poetry.

Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

Wikimedia Commons

In 1996 the Academy of American Poets dubbed April National Poetry Month to celebrate the richness of American poetry. In its honor, here are 20 black American poets who have shown brilliance in their art and service to the community.

Nikky Finney reading at the Annikki Poetry Festival in Tampere, Finland, June 9, 2012. (Wikimedia Commons)

Black Bird Press News & Review: Why not invite Marvin X for Black History Month--He's Living Black History!

Black Bird Press News & Review: Why not invite Marvin X for Black History Month--He's Living Black History!

Black Educator: Feminism and the Battle for Women's Rights in Ancient Egypt

Black Educator

News, analysis, resources and documents that help us advance "Education for Liberation." In addition, we provide critical analysis of racism and capitalism in all their ugly forms.

Sunday, May 15, 2016

4000 Years of SistaPower Fighting Sexism In Ancient Egypt

Feminism and the Battle for Women’s Rights in Ancient Egypt 

       Ancient Egyptian women celebrating feasts and festivals that were accompanied by              music and dance. 

Natalia Klimczak

15 May, 2016 - It is often assumed that women in the ancient world held little power or influence. However, women in ancient Egypt could become highly influential physicians, political advisors, scribes, or even rulers. But like women in many cultures throughout history and today, they had to fight to acquire and hold onto their rights. 

The first female ruler known in ancient Egyptian history lived during the reign of the First Dynasty. Her name was Merneith; she was a consort and a regent around 2970 BC.
 
Tomb stela of Merneith from the Umm el-Qa'ab.

After thousands of years of equal rights, Ptolemy IV tried to stop the strong tradition of cults of women. He changed the law and canceled many rights that had made women equal to men. It was the beginning of the dark age characteristic for the upcoming dominating beliefs, which had their roots in Rome and Greece. However, Egyptian women didn't want to accept a patriarchal society. Until the power of the Egyptian civilization came to an end, they fought for their rights. Commonly, researchers accept that the end of Egyptian women’s independence arrived with the death of the great scientist Hypatia in 415 AD. Before that event took place, Ancient Egyptian women had thrived in society for more than three millennia.

Women who wrote the history

Seshat was a goddess of scribes in Ancient Egypt. Many of her priestesses were well educated writers who served nobles and rulers. Moreover, it seems that all of the noble women took writing lessons. The correspondence of women from Deir el-Medina suggests that women from other classes of Egyptian society could also write. The wives of drawers, painters, stone masons and other workers, used to exchange letters with their husbands. They were writing about the obstacles of daily life, about their feelings and all of the things which were important to them.

 
Seshat carved on the back of the throne of the seated statue of Rameses II in the Amun temple at Luxor.

It is unknown how many difficulties women had to pass to become a royal scribe like men. However, there is no proof that they had to do anything more than men, suggesting that the exams and opportunities were equal. The first known female scribe is dated back to the rulers of the 6th dynasty. Idut was mentioned in the Mastaba which belonged to the vizier Ihy, dated back to the 5th Dynasty. She was perhaps a daughter of the pharaoh Unas.

In the tomb TT390, located in the South El-Assasif necropolis, which is a part of the Theban Necropolis was buried a woman named Irtyrau. She was a chief attendant of the Divine Adoratice of Amun, and a great scribe of Nitocris I, a daughter of pharaoh Psamtik I. Nitocris was a Divine Adoratice of Amun between 655 until her death in 585 BC. Irtyrau belonged to a prominent family Thinite from Abydos. The tomb of Irtyrau was discovered by the team of Wilkinson, Hey and Burton in 1820, explored later by Lepsius.
 

Tomb TT390

Viziers of the Pharaoh

Some women in ancient Egypt could also be viziers (the highest officials to serve the Pharaoh). Only two of them are confirmed and known by name. The first one is known in historical texts as Nebet. She was a vizier during the reign of pharaoh Pepi I of the Sixth Dynasty, during the period known as the Old Kingdom of Egypt. Her husband was the nobleman Khui, who was also an important person in the court of the king, but his wife reached the highest possible position in the political system of the country. The daughters of Nebet and Khui, Ankhesenpepi I and Ankhesenpepi II, became wives of Pepi I. Ankhesenpepi I was a mother of a pharaoh Merenre Nemtyemsaf. Her sister bore a Pharaoh, Pepi II. Moreover, Ankhesenpepi II, after the death of her first husband, got married to Merenre Nemtyemsaf.

Statuette of Queen Ankhesenpepi II and her Son, Pepy II, ca. 2288-2224 or 2194 B.C.E. Egyptian alabaster, Brooklyn Museum.   

Nebet was known as a powerful woman of her times, some believe that she was a princess related to the royal family. Her name was connected with Geb, Toth, and Horus. It seems that her position influenced the image of the dynasty. As a vizier she controlled the building of the pyramid of Pepi, and other monuments ordered by him. He was one of the greatest kings of his times, and his right hand was a woman.

Also during the Ptolemaic period, during the reign of Ptolemy V, a woman became a vizier - Queen Cleopatra I Syra, mother of Cleopatra II, Ptolemy VI and Ptolemy VIII. She was born in 204 BC as a daughter of King Antiochus III the Great and his wife Leodice. She was the first of the great Cleopatras of Egypt and perhaps the only queen of this country, who had become a vizier.

Queen Cleopatra I Syra. ( CC BY-SA 2.0 )

The healers of Sekhmet

The medicine of ancient Egypt was very advanced and patronized by female goddess Sekhmet. The adepts of medicine from all of the ancient world were arriving near the Nile to study the secrets of the human body. Nonetheless, in Egypt, women were able to be a lot more than midwives. They were allowed to be physicians of the royal family and even perform surgeries.
The first known female physician lived circa 2700s BC, during the reign of the 2nd and 3rd dynasties. Her name was Merit Ptah, and she is known from the necropolis around the step pyramid of Saqqara created by another great vizier, physician and scientist – Imhotep. The inscription says that her son was a High Priest and a Chief Physician. It seems that his mother was also his teacher.

Soon after, another woman became the most influential physician of the royal court near the Nile. Her name was Peseshet and she lived during the reign of the 4th and 5th dynasties. She was known as the main doctor of the Kingdom. She is known from the mastaba of her son in Giza, where her personal false door was found. She graduated at medical school in Sais, the center of the medical sciences in the third millennium BC. She knew all the medical documents created in the past, she knew how to create medications, complete difficult surgeries and is recorded as having healed cancer of the womb using a mixture of fresh dactyls, bay leaves, and essence of the seashells.

(Left) Peseshet, ( Rebel women embroidery ) (Right) Merit Ptah ( Rebel women embroidery )

The forgotten power of female minds 

Women in ancient Egypt worked in many jobs traditionally dedicated to them, but they were powerful enough to be independent, have their own workshops producing textiles, jewelry and other goods, and even take an important role in political life, become physicians or scribes. Although, they were underestimated by many historians for centuries, their strong position in the powerful civilization of ancient Egypt could be an inspiration for modern women in many parts of the world.

References:

Carolyn Graves-Brown, Dancing for Hathor: Women in Ancient Egypt, 2010.
Christian Jacq, Les Egyptiennes, 1996.
http://euler.slu.edu/~bart/egyptianhtml/kings%20and%20Queens/Viziers.html#26th_Dynasty
www.southasasif.com/Irtieru-Entrance.html
www.ancient.eu/article/49/
- See more at: http://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/feminism-and-battle-women-s-rights-ancient-egypt-005895?nopaging=1#sthash.iJyNyWuM.dpuf

References:

Carolyn Graves-Brown, Dancing for Hathor: Women in Ancient Egypt, 2010.

Christian Jacq, Les Egyptiennes, 1996.

http://euler.slu.edu/~bart/egyptianhtml/kings and Queens/Viziers.html#26th_Dynasty

www.southasasif.com/Irtieru-Entrance.html

www.ancient.eu/article/49/

-------------------------------------

A QUEEN IN A MAN’S WORLD AND A TALE OF REVENGE

 
Sarah Griffiths for MailOnline
13 May 2016- blogpvan.com

As a woman living in Egypt’s golden age, Hatshepsut was not destined for kingship.

She was prohibited by her gender from ascending the throne even though she was of royal lineage.

Egypt’s gods had supposedly decreed that the king’s role could never be fulfilled by a woman and although a pharaoh needed a queen to reign with him, she could never rule alone – although later there were notable exceptions.

Hatshepsut refused to submit to this and, to get round the rule, claimed she was married to the king of the gods and therefore had as much right to sit on the throne as any previous pharaoh.

Hatshepsut had herself crowned (illustrated) in around 1,473BC, changing her name from the female version Hatshepsut – which means Foremost of the Noble Ladies – to the male version, Hatshepsu. Note that this depiction Europeanizes the African reality of Egypt nearly 1500 years before the birth of Christ!

Her brazen approach worked and she had herself crowned in around 1,473BC, changing her name from the female version Hatshepsut – which means Foremost of the Noble Ladies – to the male version, Hatshepsu.

She reinforced her power by decorating the temples of the gods with portraits of herself in the pharaoh’s traditional kilt, wearing all his symbols of office including the black pointed royal beard.

While conducting affairs of state surrounded by male courtiers, she may even have worn men’s clothes.

However, previously-found statues show that early in her reign she liked tight-fitting gowns which showed off her figure and is said to have had a habit of bedding her cabinet ministers.
Hatshepsut was the first but not the only woman ruler of male dominated ancient Egypt.

Nefertiti followed her and then Cleopatra took power 1,500 years later, but neither took the title pharaoh like Hatshepsut.

She showed ruthless ambition and exceptional tenacity for the times in which she lived.

Hatshepsut was the first but not the only woman ruler of male dominated ancient Egypt. Nefertiti (bust pictured left) followed her and then Cleopatra (relief shown right) took power 1,500 years later, but neither took the title pharaoh like Hatshepsut.

As a result this mysterious and courageous female ruler rewrote the early story of her country and has been called the first great woman in history.

Hatshepsut insisted she had been made official heir to the throne by her father, the pharaoh Thutmosis I.

The pharaoh had several sons who predeceased him and turned to his daughter to safeguard the throne.

What immediately followed was not unusual. Hatshepsut married a much younger half-brother, also called Thutmosis, whereupon she became queen.

Marriages between siblings were the custom in those days and at first the couple reigned together.

But then her brother/husband died, with the markings on his mummy suggesting he suffered from a hideous skin disease.

Hatshepsut became regent for another Thutmosis, her husband’s son by a harem girl. By now she was not content simply to be regent.

Within two years she had taken all the power for herself and was running the country from its capital Thebes, donned in her false beard and all the traditional regalia of kingship.

For many years she and her stepson seemed to have lived happily with this arrangement.

She ruled while Thutmosis concentrated on his military career. So successful was he that historians know him as the Napoleon of Egypt.

Historians suspect these campaigns were an excuse to escape from the influence of his merciless step-mother.

She ruled while Thutmosis (shown in a relief wearing an Atef crown) concentrated on his military career. So successful was he that historians know him as the Napoleon of Egypt
She was becoming so powercrazed in her last years that Thutmosis even feared for his life.

In his absence, Hatshepsut built breathtaking temples in her own honour. They were decorated with reliefs telling how she came to the throne of Egypt and with farfetched stories about her divine connections.

Hatshepsut ruled as a master politician and stateswoman for 20 years.

She died around the age of 50 of cancer, according to recent research and expected to be buried in her finest and best-known temple near the Valley of the Kings.

But it appears Thutmosis III got his own back on the woman who usurped his throne, burying her in a lesser location.

He outlived Hatshepsut by 40 years and seems to have set out on a campaign to erase her name from history.

He threw her statues into the quarries in front of the grand temples she built and even defaced the images of her courtiers.

Marvin X play In the Name of Love, aka, confessions of a wife beater

 In the Name of Love, a poetic drama by Marvin X, Laney College Theatre



production by instructor Marvin X. Cast featured Zahieb Mwongozi, Ayodele



Nzinga, Doris Knight (RIP), 1981.

Black Arts Movement Business District Townhall Meeting

We understand over 70 people attended the Town Hall Meeting at Eastside Arts to discuss the Black Arts Movement Business District, hosted by Dr. Ayodele Nzinga. People came as individuals and as members of organizations who want to see the BAMBD a reality along the 14th Street corridor, downtown Oakland. Dr. Nzinga informed folks the BAMBD will be whatever they want it to be and the idea is beyond the imagination of any person or group. Stay tuned for a summary of the meeting. Another meeting is scheduled soon.

FYI, the Oakland City Council approved the district on January 19, 2016. We still await banners and vendors along the corridor. We have also asked that the Malonga Center be placed in a land trust for the BAMBD district along with other properties that will be utilized for artist space and general housing. We would like to see capital improvements to Geofrey's Inner Circle as an anchor of the BAMBD. There is discussion of extending the BAMBD from the Lower Bottom of 14th Street to deep East Oakland along the International Blvd. corridor. Activities planned for the BAMBD include the Black Arts Movement Theatre Festival at the Flight Deck and Donald Lacy's play Color Struck at the Laney College Theatre, August-September, 2016. For more information, please contact Dr. Ayodele Nzinga: 510-457-8999.