Black Bird Press News & Review

Thursday, July 20, 2017

black bird press news popular posts

POPULAR POSTS

belated hapi b day assata

TOMORROW: ON SUNDAY, JULY 16, 2017 @ 4:30 pm IN NEWARK, NEW JERSEY...

IS THE 70th BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION FOR ASSATA SHAKUR

THE NEW JERSEY BLACK PANTHER PARTY COMMEMORATION COMMITTEE

973 202 0745; 973 738 2205

njbppcom50@gmail.com

“To move a blade of grass is to change the world…”

Huey P. Newton

July 2017

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE!

EXILED PANTHER ASSATA SHAKUR WILL BE FETED AT 70!

On Sunday, July 16^th, a cross section of activists, artists and humanitarians will come together to salute Assata Shakur, the long exiled Black Panther who resides in Cuba to mark her 70^th birthday.

The gathering is called ‘For The Love Of Freedom: Assata Is Always Welcome Here-An Honoring of 70 Years of a Committed Life.’

It will not be the usual maligning of Shakur in connection with the bounty on her head that comes from the NJ State Police, the FBI and the law enforcement community.

Instead, it will be an evening of poetry, dance, song, testimony and more, appreciating the activist’s lifetime commitment to the struggle for human dignity.

Shakur was born on July 16^th, 1947 to a proud, independent Black family from Wilmington, North Carolina. At the turn of the 20^th century, Wilmington was the site of a vicious ethnic cleansing attack that literally ran legions of African Americans from the town. Shakur’s grandparents dared to be landowning business persons against this violently segregated background. It is from this background that would emerge her own commitment and courage that she would take into the Black Panther Party as a college student.

When the Black Panther Party was faced with the dangerous distinction of being labelled the ‘greatest threat to the internal security’ of the country by the FBI, and when NY chapters of the Party came under particular attack after surviving the NY 21 case, a case where 21 Panthers, officers and rank and file members were put on trial for bogus conspiracy charges to commit terrorist acts, charges that would have landed them in prison for the rest of their lives, Shakur and a number of other Panthers opted to go underground and create the Black Liberation Army to continue their fight.

On May 2, 1973, Shakur was shot and critically injured in an incident on the NJ Turnpike that would capture international attention. It is often referred to as the ‘Turnpike Incident,’ an apparent racial profiling stop by a NJ State Trooper. The incident left Shakur critically wounded, Zayd Shakur, the apparent driver dead and Trooper Werner Foerster dead. At her trial, forensic evidence clearly established that Shakur was shot with her hands up, and that the Trooper who made the stop, James Harper, by his own admission, started the shooting and fled the scene. Yet Shakur and her co-defendant Sundiata Acoli, now 80 and still incarcerated, were each given sentences of life plus thirty years, after being convicted for the murder of Trooper Foerster. On November 2, 1979, Shakur was liberated from what was then the Clinton Correctional Facility in one of the most incredible moments in the history of the Black Liberation Movement after enduring threats on her life while in prison. She was since given exile in Cuba. She currently has a 2 million dollar bounty for her capture and was put on the FBI’s Domestic Terrorist List retroactively several years ago.

Meanwhile, supporters of Shakur, and many others in the human rights community believe that cases like hers should be reopened in a context of a Truth And Reconciliation Commission that takes on how racism drove police violence and repression during that period, a framework comparable to what emerged in South Africa on their road to dismantling Apartheid.

In 1987, Shakur penned a moving memoir of her life story, Assata:An Autobiography. She has lent her voice to other humanitarian efforts and to the support many other of her comrades from the Black Panther Party who are still in prison as a result of the now well-known COINTELPRO Operations that were empanelled to destroy the Party and other important Black leaders. She is the subject of a moving film Eyes Of The Rainbow done by critically acclaimed filmmaker Afro-Cuban filmmaker Gloria Rolando Ocasio. While murderously maligned by mainstream press and racist and opportunist politicians, she is considered a miraculous surviving link to the Underground Railroad legacy of her ancestors.

“Assata was not even an officer or a leader in the Party, and yet there was this obsession with going after her, or rather with going after rank and file members of the Party, as intensely as they were going after its leadership.

“What happened to her is a prime example of the length that the government was willing to go to destroy the Party,” said Zayid Muhammad, a longtime supporter of Shakur and a principal organizer of the gathering.

“The fact that she survived her incredible ordeal and was able to secure some semblance of freedom, albeit exiled, is a testimony to the spiritual will of our people to survive the worse expressions of oppression and to be free,” he finished

Just as this moving gathering will feature poetry, song, dance, testimony from Shakur’s comrades, as indicated above, it will also lay out meaningful support measures to be taken in support of her Party comrades still in prison, appreciation of the Cuban Revolution and its incredible solidarity with the African world and the oppressed, and more.

This moving afternoon will take place at The REFAL Center, 271 So 9^th Street, Newark at 4:30pm…

"Hands Off Assata Shakur, Free Sundiata Acoli & Long Live The Panther Spirit Of Zayid Malik Shakur"

* Above: Read Assata's Book & Support The Revolutionary Art Of Captured Comrade Kevin Rashid Johnson

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

dr. nathan hare emails marvin x on the true history of black scholar magazine

photo adam turner

Marvin. And as far as The Black Scholar is concerned, whenever people are talking about something they never have but part of the picture. I used to get couples in who’d broken up years ago but the courts or/and the schools demanded they get treatment re their child in trouble, and sometimes they’d be surprised of things they thought had happened or didn’t know what happened.

Say people would see articles by nationalists or somebody (and by the way, they wanted to reject Marxism that wasn’t acceptable, like Eldridge Cleaver was a no-no, a very creative professor little known in Canada), and they observer wouldn’t know what nationalism had been rejected or how hard I fought to get in something by Haki Madhubuti, or what had been rejected by whomever.

People might communicate with Chrisman as editor, but then when everything is brought to the editorial meeting before each issue he might not be for it. Plus Chrisman was always editing people’s stuff. The very first article I did, on the festival in Algiers in the first issue, he changed the first sentence. Then when we were drinking one night, he said remarked that I was a sociologist who could write like Hemingway (that sentence had been patterned after Hemingway).

I told him Bob he shouldn’t be chopping up these leading authors’ stuff a and don’t toucha sentence of mine. He wanted to be an English teacher and a chiseling poet. He could write short pieces, but not long ones. Poetry he could get together a few words a drink and take his time, but he couldn’t do a long essay very well if at all. He took off once for a month to write on a book we haven’t seen yet. He objected to m y article on Black Ecology. He’d already written one in Scanlon’s (?) short-lived but well promoted white magazine, saying “Ecology is a Racist Shuck.” Then here I come with “Black Ecology” saying we could take it higher but blacks would have to show them the way, because our ecological condition was more social, the solution would have to be more social and thus more human. It went all over the place. He opposed my publisher’s statements, according to Al Ross, particularly the one in the second issue written partly when I was in jail.

Or so Al told me. So I stopped doing them in a huff because I always had some writing assignment in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the Harvard professor included me among “Thirteen Black Intellectuals” in an Esquire article, just saying, I didn’t need it but Bob Chrisman did because, even today, his name is nothing apart from The Black Scholar. And, though I haven’t seen a copy in many years, I’d wager it’s nothing like it was when I was there, if anybody wants to check it out. We used to do each issue on a special topic. About a very few in, Bob Chrisman announced we’d run out of topics, but I rattled off about five on the spot and we kept on, at least as long as I was there.

The Black Scholar kicked off so well because a white guy who usually got a thousand dollars for designing covers (say ten thousand in today’s terms) voluntarily did the cover through Alan Ross, who was co-owner of Graphic Arts of Marin. But he didn’t fund us, though he’d print free at first and let us use an office in the building free at first. But we started the journal by chipping in three hundred dollars apiece, except that it didn’t total nine hundred dollars, just seven hundred and fifty, because Bob Chrisman couldn’t come up with but half of his. That’s why the irony of his willing it to his daughter. Who would have thought of such a thing. I made many mistakes in life, but one was not in leaving with Al Ross as he continued to implore me to do, as we could have put The Black Scholar in the shade.

Nathan Hare

From: Nathan Hare
Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2017 11:32 AM

Marvin,

Just thinking, for what it’s worth to your friend who missed seeing me at The Black Scholar, you don’t see much of any head people when you go into a place or enterprise, seldom the president of the bank when you go to make a loan let alone to make a deposit or cash a check. Like people who go to church don’t see God there but testify that they saw him somewhere else and want to be saved. Plus when I went back to school, essentially leaving The Black Scholar except for helping them get two grants of $10,l000, in money of that day, like a $100,000l each now. I was on the Board of the San Francisco Local Development Corporation s well as on the Point Foundation in Sausalito. Among others. When Al Ross left in 1973, Robert Allen had come on as associate editor and I agreed with Bob Crhisman to let Robert Allen take Al’s place on the Board, if he’d let my former secretary, Glroia Bevien, who had been assisting Al Ross, be Business Manager. In time, with me gone, returning to school in September 1973, I was only at The Black Scholar for the weekly Friday morning business meeting. In my mind, I was going to leave when I got the degree. Al Ross kept trying to get me to leave with him and would ask me to stop by the Black Scholar Book Club he had taken with him to an office in a church at the edge of Marin City. I could have taken the Black Scholar Lecture Bureau (both entities would fold anyway) and God knows what else we could have done from there.

You didn’t have that kind of black book club in those days or black lecture bureaus who knew that the trick is not getting a list of prominent speakers so much as getting the gigs by courting BSU leaders and Black faculty and while college lecture chiefs. You can always get the speaker or the next best thing if you are presenting them with a gig. Conference planners and the like. One needs a clerk on the phone all day courting such individuals, not the speakers you can get with the drop of a dollar bill. So my office was in the back, the biggest one, usually with the door closed, and in which I even did copyreading and would find umpteen errors after the staff had finished; the office we held the weekly meetings in,. But after 1973, I wasn’t even on the premises other than Friday mornings. I left in late March of 1973, instead of August as I had planned when I returned to school, because I was getting so upset when all three continued to team up against me in my absence, which I guess they resented and Bob had as a good selling point to the unenlightened, so a meeting blew up, and I came home and Julia called Al Ross’s widow, as he had recently died, and she came over with their daughter and the three women urged me to quit then instead of August. I guess they feared something might happen though I was no longer packing, because things had come to a head that morning.

Nathan Hare

Phone: 415-474-1707

Fax: 415-589-7983

On Wednesday, July 19, 2017, 2:32:40 PM PDT, Marvin X Jackmon wrote:

Marvin,

Check out this link. http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/blackstudies/n76.xml

I just took a notion to try to see what kind of articles The Black Scholar might be doing ideologically these days – to see if it wasn’t more petite bourgeoisie noir or otherwise cloaked in Afrocentrism in the kingdom of Africana -- and this popped up wherein some clowns are saying The Black Scholar was founded by Al Ross and Robert Chrisman, with no mention l’il ol’ me! You can take an egocentric so-an-so out of white studies and polka dot studies and make him afrocentric or ethnocentric or just let him stay eccentric, if you want him to. Either way – as Don King put it recently , he’ll still be “just a nigger” (Disclaimer: Don King’s words, not mine).

marvin x reply to dr hare

doc, you know we call this revisionist negro history, another crisis of the negro intellectual. they often give their narratives of black history that jump from marcus garvey to malcolm x, never mentioning elijah muhammad. in the black arts movement history, they make me a minor player, although i worked in bam coast to coast, wrote in soulbook, black dialogue, journal of black poetry, negro digest/black world, black theatre, black scholar and muhammad speaks; founded black arts west theatre, black house, san francisco and worked at the new lafayette theatre in harlem, taught black studies at fresno state u., san francisco state u, uc berkeley, uc san diego, mills college, laney and merritt; have written 30 books. minor player my motherfuckin ass!

--marvin x

John Woodford

To:Marvin X Jackmon

Jul 19 at 3:31 PM

Subject: Re: black bird press news--dr. nathan hare on the true history of black scholar magazine

Nathan Hare has always seemed to me a man of fascinating, wide-ranging opinions, some (just a few) of which, to me, miss the point. But when it comes to brass tacks, or hard facts, he seems to hit the nail on the head, so this is a sniper of history to take seriously.

Bob Chrisman was one of those unusual people who could speak in a string of bon mots on a variety of topics--music, literature, sports, politics, technology and more -- profound and poetic in conversation, but, as Hare notes, for some reason, except in his poetry, not given to longer prose runs. Yet, being as dogged as he was stubborn, he pulled himself together here in Ann Arbor to write a doctoral dissertation on Robert Hayden.

In the years I knew him, however, whenever I heard him speak of the founding of the Black Scholar, he always mentioned Nathan Hare as present at the creation. Since I knew that anyway, the private statement may not amount to much, and I don't know what he had to say publicly on that question. I could sense there was bad blood of some sort between them arising from the Scholar relationship. He didn't invite questions on the matter and I was not one to probe for gossip, but he didn't disparage you, Nathan. And as you may perhaps agree,

I don't know anything about Ross, but it strikes me, looking back, that it is too bad the Hare-Chrisman-Allen triumvirate couldn't hold, since it was certainly a constellation of mind and talent that could have produce a publication that blazed even more brightly and remarkably than it did in its prime.

Hey, Marvin: I sure like that T shirt!!

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

harrison chastang, news director, kpoo radio, san francisco, interviews marvin x on the black arts movement business district

here it is https://www.mixcloud.com/oorfenegro/marvin-x-jackmon-talking-about-oakland-black-arts-movement-business-district/

Harrison Chastang

News Director

KPOO FM Radio

San Francisco, CA

415.205.9128 cell/text

OF GHOST WRITERS AND GHOSTS IN THE BAMBD

Jesse Allen Taylor is trying to improve his fact checking, but we proofread his article and made a few changes, nothing major except the glaring error that Lynette created the BAMBD by herself. Others involved in the concept must include Menuhim Ayele, Paul Cobb, Conway Jones, Jr., Anyka Barber, Joyce Gordon, Aries Jordan, Ayodele Nzinga, Eric Arnold and myself. Lynette also has ghosts she meets with in ghost meeting rooms at City Hall and other ghost locations. I am sure Ayodele Nzinga and Eric Arnold will peruse Jesse's article to correct other errors. --Marvin X

eric arnold on ghost writers

For the record, Allen-Taylor has consistently gotten this story wrong, sometimes insisting on publishing defamatory hearsay without even attempting to confirm the facts. When we brought this to his attention and demanded a retraction, he asked us to list what was false and/or misleading. We counted at least 66 errors in five separate columns. That is inexplicable for anyone who considers themselves to be a professional journalist. When the 66 errors were noted to Allen-Taylor, instead of issuing the retraction, he informed me he had simply deleted the passages--which is unethical, to say the least.

In his latest column, he repeats a mistake he has already been informed of, namely, his assertion that McElhaney created BAMBD all on her own. As many of you know, the naming came out of the Culture Keepers working group--which McElhaney has not convened in almost a year.

There are some other facts Allen-Taylor gets wrong--he misspelled "Oakulture", for one--and I have to wonder about his assertion that a staff member could be hired for the $5000 CAC designation would have brought.

Meanwhile, Ms. Nzinga and myself have negotiated CBAs which represent the only real investment in the district thusfar. So, it is incorrect to say that there are no ongoing projects -- among the things which are, in fact, ongoing, are an Art Advisory Board, commitments to cultural retail at BMR, a technical assistance program for small businesses, an Anti-Displacement Fund, and even a youth-run art expo. BAMBD CDC has been mentioned by Cultural Arts Manager Roberto Bedoya as being in the best position of any emerging arts district in Oakland, and Ms. Nzinga will be participating in the Downtown Oakland Specific Plan planning process on behalf of the district --which includes several official meetings over the next few months.

Apparently, Allen-Taylor has concluded that his ignorance as to what is actually going on with BAMBD can be projected onto reality, but this is an erroneous assumption, like much of his recent writings. There's a lot going on, including upcoming Town Hall meetings and non-profit certification, which will help facilitate capacity-building and greater investment in the district. We are also hearing that there is interest in BAMBD from the philanthropic community.

Although the failure to secure CAC designation appears to be a setback on paper, because of the effort, we now have a cultural asset map and inventory of public art. Not only will we not be deterred, but we plan to apply again next year, and to ensure the application is as robust and thorough as it should have been.

As for Allen-Taylor, we are considering taking legal action against him. I would just like to advise folks not to speak with him on or off the record, until he retracts the many falsehoods and misleading statements he has made.

In community,

Eric Arnold

----- Forwarded Message -----

From: J. Douglas Allen-Taylor (Jesse Allen Taylor)

To: Jesse Douglas Allen-Taylor

Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2017, 3:48:02 PM PDT

Subject: OAKLAND'S BLACK ARTS AND BUSINESS DISTRICT LEFT OFF STATE PILOT PROJECT LIST

OAKLAND’S BLACK ARTS AND BUSINESS DISTRICT LEFT OFF STATE PILOT PROJECT LIST

A CounterPoints Column by J. Douglas Allen-Taylor

Marvin X and Councilmember Lynette McElhaney in happier times

Oakland’s official downtown and West Oakland-based Black Arts Movement and Business District (BAMBD) received a blow last week when it failed to make the California Arts Council’s list of “14 districts that will serve as California's inaugural state-designated Cultural Districts.” Oakland’s district will not get the chance to apply for state recognition again until the California Arts Council puts its full local cultural district program in place in 2019.

Among the nearby local cultural districts that were included in the 14 member pilot project were one apiece located in Emeryville and San Rafael and two in San Francisco.

The BAMBD was the creation of Oakland Third District City Councilmember Lynette Gibson McElhaney and was authorized by the Oakland City Council in January of 2016. On paper, it runs in an eight block corridor with Broadway at the center between Chinatown and Uptown, from the western bank of Lake Merritt to the 880 freeway. It was officially set up to “highlight, celebrate, preserve and support the contributions of Oakland’s Black artists and business owners” in that downtown/West Oakland corridor.

Besides the prestige of state recognition, making the Arts Council’s pilot project list would have meant access to state funding and the promise that the California Arts Council would assist BAMBD in receiving grants from private sources. McElhaney’s office, which was listed as the lead agency on the Arts Council application, had tentatively budgeted the small amount of money that would have immediately come with state recognition to hire a dedicated staff member to begin putting a program together to implement the BAMBD, which as yet has no ongoing projects.

But now, with the City of Oakland’s failure to provide any money for the official BAMBD and without the apparent active public support of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, it is difficult to see where funds to hire a staff for the district or to create any programs for it will come from.

Oakland Black poet/playwright and arts activist Marvin X Jackmon, who McElhaney once credited with helping her develop the BAMBD concept, immediately put the blame for the BAMBD’s failure to get state recognition directly on the Councilmember.

“[I suggest] City Councilwoman Lynette Mcelhaney take an acting class from Dr. Ayodele Nzinga's Lower Bottom Playaz,” Jackmon wrote in an email message to supporters following the Arts Council announcement. “Clearly her fake performance with the Cal Arts Council was not convincing. CAC didn't go for her top down domination of the BAMBD. She has yet acted on Marvin X's long request for banners, specifically, the African red, black and green flag, and Black/African vendors in the streets along the BAMBD corridor, 14th Street. Such a cosmetic appearance might have convinced the CAC to certify our district. Next time around, Lynette, improve your acting and stagecraft. See Dr. Nzinga at the Flight Theatre asap.”

Ayedole Nzinga is the founder and director of the Lower Bottom Playaz independent Black theater group. The group was originally based at the Black Dot Café in West Oakland’s Lower Bottom community, but has since relocated to Broadway’s Flight Deck Theater for its most recent productions. The Movement newspaper, which bills itself as the “Voice Of The Black Arts Movement International” and lists “Marvin X” as its Executive Publisher and Nzinga as its senior writer, also lists Nzinga as BAMBD’s lead planner.

Last summer, Nzinga filed the BAMBD Community Development Corporation of Oakland as a nonprofit corporation with the California Secretary of State’s office. Along with Oakland journalist Eric Arnold, who lists himself as “Co-Director of BAMBD CDC” on his oakculture website, Nzinga has been negotiating for several months under the BAMBD Community Development Corporation name with several developers for community benefits from proposed downtown development projects.

THE GHOST SPEAKS

Lynette Gibson McElhaney Marvin, as an elder you well know that name-calling, divisiveness and in-fighting have never benefitted our people. It is sad to see you continue your attempts to create divisions in our community. Others in the District and throughout the city continue to seek out opportunities to work together, to strengthen and not weaken the community's political position and to lift up the incredibly difficult work of sustaining and growing Black artists and Black-owned businesses in the District and throughout the city.

I want to honor the incredible work of the Malonga Arts Collective, SambaFunk, Diamona Coura, Joyce Gordon, Destiny Muhammad, 310 Gallery, Level 13, AAMLO and the hosts of businesses and leaders who came together within a 3 week timeframe to put together a very competitive application. The CAC commissioners expressed a great deal of support for your efforts and have pledged to offer the district leaders technical assistance in anticipation of the 2nd round of approvals in 2019.

I am deeply honored to serve in this time and grateful that over the course of two years we have done a great deal to increase the visibility and viability of black entrepreneurs, artists, professionals, athletes, elected officials and community organizations.

WE must do all that we can to resist the temptation of inflicting self-harm -- even as we advocate, criticize, organize and demand better for our communities.

In closing, I urge everyone to remember that a house divided cannot stand.

My team and I are here to continue our efforts to help and support.

LikeShow more reactions

· Reply · 5 hrs · Edited

Remove

Marvin X Jackmon jb said talking loud saying nothing--no, you talk loud but do nothing.