Sunday, August 19, 2018

In Memoriam: Notes on Oakland Afro American Association founder, Attorney Donald Warden, aka Khalid Abdullah Tariq al Mansour, mentor of the Black Panthers

His Black Consciousness Program
Rocked the Bay Area like no other
black panthers black arts black studies kwanza




Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour
AKA, Attorney Donald Warden
January 1, 1936--December 15, 2016


Comments from the people on Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour

Marvin -Wonderful historic overview of those important times - thanks for continuing to chronicle our history.

Dezie Woods Jones
BWOPA

-----------------------------
Marvin,

My career started with the shooting death of Melvin Black where I concluded that the shooting was wrongful.  Like most I listened to Don Warden aka Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour  every Sunday evening.  The last time I spoke with him which was 5 to 7 years ago, I told him that his words and deeds were an inspiration for my career as a lawyer representing people abused by the police and various radio programs that I have hosted. Long live his memory in our minds and hearts.

John Burris

-------------------------------------
Brother Marvin, 
Thank you for the thoughtful tribute to Khalid Al Mansour . I had the unique opportunity to be present during the formative time of the Afro-American Association while attending Oakland City College in 1961-1963. Although, I have no pictures or documents to share, there is yet an abiding place in my heart and soul filled with powerful and positive images of this most trans formative period in my life. The AAA discussion meetings, debates and street corner speeches by Khalid Al Man-sour and others awakened me and set my life on a different path toward personal growth and development. I am grateful for the consciousness-raising experiences that helped inform my educational and career decisions which always included the thought of how my actions could benefit my family and my community. My involvement in the Movement expanded my vision beyond the few blocks in West Oakland where I grew up.  I give thanks to Khalid Al Mansour, the AAA, and all the sisters and brothers of the SF Bay Area civil rights and Black Nationalist movements who helped raise my social and cultural awareness, stimulated my intellectual curiosity and made me a better person. What we all experienced is worthy to be remembered, valued and shared with the generations of now and those that follow. Peace
--Ann Williams Willis

-------------------------
I still have the papers of the Association that were written in the 1960s. Some of the Association's philosophy came froleft out the 7th keym several other people besides Khalid, including some from the original 12 members of the "book club", which evolved into the Association.

A few of us are planning to have some sort of gathering to express the legacy of the Association, probably within 6 months. Time is needed to collect as much info as possible and get the word out to as many people as possible.

I am writing a book about the Association because many of us are very old. This book will contain some information; but no one book could contain all information about the Association. Each attendee has his/her perspective and memory about this vital organization. Originally I did not want to write this book because I knew we were still being watched. An example: Loye Cherry introduced Roger Holmes to the Association and Don. Roger and John Anderson  at San Jose State College in 1968 presented "Black is Becoming" conference, where Don debated Shockley (who stated that Black people were inferior). Others on the panel included Mr. Forman of CORE, Al Poussaint. However Don stole the audience with his excellent debating skills. Roger went on to attend law school at Santa Clara University. While attending this school, Roger played tennis with a young man who he found out was a Prince in Kuwait. Roger told Don and they shortly thereafter got involved with the Arabs. Roger and Don became law partners. Both changed their names.  I could go on and on. Don and Roger left out the 7th key....the dark side. We always used RISEPE; but I added the dark side. OPEC is controlled. The Saudi Family was enhanced by Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940s, under the condition of controlling the oil in exchange for protection. The darkness continues. Another ex.: Knorvel Cherry was responsible for getting McClymonds to allow the Association to hold the "Mind of the Ghetto" Conferences in 1963 (Malcolm X) and 1964 (Cassius Clay). Knorvel also got Tillman to to produce the Association's newspaper in 1964.

Anyway, my book is being reviewed.

Please, gather whatever information you have, so we can share our information with each other.


Thank you,

Lee O. Cherry
--------------------------------------

Very missed. Dr. Al-Mansour took personal interest in my international pursuits back in the 90's. I remember receiving a call from him on a Sunday evening back in 1998 and saying to meet him in the lobby of the Shangrila Hotel in Kuala Lumpur that Wednesday. I scrambled things together and made it. Although many influential people also arrived there from various parts of the world, he was quite attentive to my needs and introduced me to the Chariman of Renong Berhad, Tan Sri Halim Saad. That company was responsible for, what was at that time the tallest building in the world, Petronas Towers. Everything went well and if not for the fact that just 2 months later, the Asia money crisis hit, the project I was developing in China would have become a reality.

His books opened my interest in ancient African history, and his contribution to the Black world was enormous.

--Barry Pierce
-------------------------

Ser Seshs Ab Heter-Boxley My person used to listen to him on radio KDIA on his Black Montage Program on Sunday afternoon way back in the 1960s. He and the Late Huey Newton used to talk about "Jesus being black" it was a mind blower for a then "Negro" minded young black man from Natchez Mississippi who was indoctrinated by Catholic school and church.



Kweli Tutashinda The only person I've seen out talk Minister Farrakhan! Lol

Manage




Itibari M. Zulu Thanks Marvin. I also remember him on KDIA, back in the day. He was on point as a critical thinker and consciousness builder. His story need to be told.


El Muhajir/Marvin X:

Thank you for all of this important history!! Of course I grew up listening to Bro. Khalid (Donald Warden) on Sunday evenings broadcast from his Afro American Historical Society on KDIA. When I entered Berkeley, I frequently saw him and Donald Hopkins in academic and social settings. After he converted to Islam, he came to Sacramento in the early 90s to lecture and offer evidence to the African American Muslim community of the presence of Africans in ancient Arabia.  The last time I saw him was in the 2000s at Yoshi’s when Pharoah Sanders was performing. He was walking swiftly past the restaurant and i didn’t get a chance to greet him. May this Giant Rest In Peace and Power.
--Fahizah Alim

Marvin X and his Muse, Fahizah Alim


When I graduated from Edison High School, Fresno CA, 1962, I wanted to attend Howard
University. When I came to Oakland and told my father, he suggested I go see his friend, Oakland Post Publisher Tom Berkley. When I told Tom my desire, he told me to forget about Howard, you don't need to go to Howard, we have good schools out here. I forgot about Howard and enrolled at Oakland City College, aka, Merritt College, on Grove Street, now Martin Luther King, Jr. Ave.

By the time I graduated from OCC, I had to admit maybe Tom Berkley was right, especially after I was initiated into revolutionary black nationalism that I would carry with me to San Francisco State College/University and beyond for the remainder of my life. en

But unlike Howard, there were few Black instructors and no Black Studies. My Black consciousness came from listening to brothers and sisters rapping on the steps of OCC. Rapping was not beats and rhymes, but extemporaneous speaking on revolution by a variety of speakers, including Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Ernie Allen, Maurice Dawson, Richard Thorne, and Attorney Donald Warden, head of the Afro American Association.

I was fascinated at the brothers rapping. I don't recall sisters rapping but sisters were involved. There was Ann Williams, partner of Richard Thorne. Richard Thorne introduced me to Huey Newton. Carol Freeman, Mississippi poet, married to Ken Freeman, aka, Mamadou Lumumba. Sisters Ellendar Barnes, Judy Juanita, and others whose names I can't recall. There were elder sisters like Mother McKenya, Mother Ruth Hagwood, et al.

From the steps of the college, the rap sessions would move to a campus room for an AAA meeting, or across the street to a greasy spoon .cafe for hamburgers, fries, milkshakes and more rapping. From the cafe we might gather in a fellow student's room. From the steps of OCC, AAA meetings, greasy spoon cafe sessions and meetings in our rooms, we had non-credit independent peer group study, discoursing on black nationalism, the black bourgeoisie (Dr. E. Franklin Frazier), Dr. Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth, the writings of Kwame Nkrumah, Neo-colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism. We discussed Patrice Lumumba, first prime minister of the Congo, assassinated by African neo-colonialists at the behest of the West, Belgium, America, et al. We talked about the Sharpesville Massacre in South Africa, about Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress.
In Cultural Anthropology, we studied Jomo Kenyatta's ethnography of his Kikuyu tribe. Outside of class we were enthralled by the Mau Mau fighters in Kenya, guerrilla fighters who attacked the European colonialists  and the reactionary colonial elite who resisted the call for independence. "They" say the Mau Mau had to kill more African resisters to independence than Europeans.

In order to extricate North American Africans from this American matrix, quagmire, conundrum of tricknology, lies, fake news, world of make believe Hollywood CIA propaganda films, arresting our development, keeping us on the low information vibration, we must confront our domestic neo-colonial elite, if necessary with the Mau Mau model. See my Parable of Black Man and Block Man.
Imagine the Catholic Church has sexual psychopathic priests abusing children. Aw, we say the Black Culture Police are even worse, Jesse Jackson, Bill Cosby, et al., moral hypocrites. I was a moral hypocrite once. I spoke at Berkeley High School about Crack addiction. A few days later I was buying Crack in North Oakland. The youth selling me the Crack recognized me from his class at Berkeley High, "Hey teach, wasn't you in my class at Berkeley High talking against Crack? How could I lie? I was busted. I vowed to myself to never be a contradiction. From reading my critics, I know I am my worse critic. I seem to learn best by experience. At OCC we also studied the writings of Ho Chi Minh, leader of the North Vietnam national liberation movement. We saw our struggle and theirs as one international movement for the nation liberation of oppressed peoples. Not only did our peer group independent study sessions include dialouge on the Cuban revolution and the writings of Che Guevara. We especially like Fidel Castro's court speech History Will Absolve Me!

Malcolm X was our hero on the West Coast, not Dr. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement, although we connected with student Rights workers in SNCC, Stokely Carmichael/Kwame Toure, John Lewis, H. Rap Brown/Imam Jamil Alamin, Kathleen Neal Cleaver.

The Afro American Association sold sweat shirts with revolutionary fighter Jomo Kenyatfta on the front. Kenya won independence 1963. The AAA rapped on the streets of the Bay Area, from Oakland to San Francisco's Fillmore District, usually on corners, speaking on liberation, cultural consciousness and do for self economics. Aside from students, the AAA had some heavy minds, intellectuals, lawyers: Donald Hopkins, Fred and Mary Lewis, Henry Ramsey and Eleanor Mason, Paul Cobb, Ed Howard, et al. It may have been too many great minds in one space that was the ultimate undoing of the AAA. Khalid was charismatic, for sure, and a great speaker. He was humorous. I recall him saying if you can make the people laugh, you got your audience.

Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour and the Afro American Association was critical to the spread of revolutionary Black and African consciousness in the Bay Area. We must give thanks and praise for the AAA, from which the Black Panther Party leaders were nourished; the West Coast Black Arts Movement evolved from the AAA influence that impressed Marvin X, Judy Juanita, Ellendar Barnes and others who were budding artists and writers. Surely the AAA inspired the call for Black Studies, along with students who were not associated  with the AAA, although the AAA's influence was pervasive. Revolutionary students, inspired by the AAA and the explosive world revolution for national liberation from colonialism and neo-colonialism, when the colonial elite take power without decolonizing their Euro-African minds, connected with the national black student revolution, from SNCC in the South to RAM in the North. RAM or Revolutionary Action Movement was founded by Robert F. Williams, North Carolina NAACP leader who believed in arm self defense (see his classic Negroes With Guns). Max Stanford/Muhammad Ahmad was a co-leader from Philadelphia, helped organize RAM at Howard University, connecting RAM with SNCC in the South. At OCC RAM had members and associates who helped publish SoulBook, Edited by Kenny Freeman/Mamadou Lumumba, Donald Freeman (Kenney's brother, although there is another revolutionary brother Donald Freeman of Cleveland, Ohio. Other editors included Isaac Moore, Ernest Allen, Caroll Holmes Freeman, Bob Hamilton. My first published story won a prize in the Merritt Student Magazine, actually I won a prize for Delicate Child, and Soulbook published it.  Growing in Marxism and black revolutionary nationalist thought, the AAA was not a place for Soulbook people, so they/we moved on. Donald Warden held us in his tender caring arms until we could walk on and we did. Thank you Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour for your leadership. Thank you for your talks on Black and African consciousness on radio stations KDIA and KPFA. Thank you helping brothers in San Quentin Prison, at the request of Malcolm X. We were among the seven thousand students outside Sproul Hall when Malcolm X addressed seven thousand students.

Maulana Ron Karenga was the Los Angeles representative of the AAA. AAA member Ed Howard says Kwanza came from Oakland. Mother MrcKenya is said to have produced the first Kwanza ceremony in Oakland.

At some point Donald Warden converted to Islam, in fact, became a lawyer for OPEC, the oil cartel, then a lawyer for the Saudi Arabian royal family. At the direction of the Saudi Royal family, Khalid is said to have steered Barack Hassien Obama into Harvard. Khalid wrote many books you can Google.

Our last interaction with Khalid was 1979 at the Oakland Auditorium, a rally to protest the OPD killing of 15 year old, Melvin Black, actually they were killing a Black monthly, until they killed my close friend's Melvin Black. While teaching English, Creative Writing and Technical Writing at the University of Nevada, Reno and Nevada Community College, I read the San Francisco Chronicle Newspaper to keep up on events in the Bay. One morning I looked at the SF Chronicle to see another killing of a Black man by the OPD. I threw the paper down in disgust, but later I turned to the back page to finish the article and their was a picture of my close friend and best Elementary Arabic student, Mustafa/Lawrence McKinney, along with his sister Charla Black, outside Oakland City Hall protesting the OPD murder under the color of law of their 15 year old brother Melvin Black.

We formed a planning committee for the rally. Speakers included Minister Farakhan as featured speaker, along with Angela Davis, Eldridge Cleaver, Monsa Nitoto, Paul Cobb, Dezzie Woods Jones, Jo Nina Abram, Oba T'Shaka, et al. The rally was from noon to midnight, five thousand attended. Journalist Edith Austin wrote about the rally in her Sun Reporter column, said it was without incident.

But let me give you the untold story. We were behind schedule and running late, it was ten o'clock when Minister Farakhan sent an FOI with a message to come to the Green Room. 'When I got there, the Minister said, "Marvin, if you don't get Khalid off the mike, I'm leaving for Chicago right now."
"Yes, Sir, Brother Minister," I said. As MC, I went up on stage and gently grabbed the mike from Khalid who had been rambling on and on about a Wakandan style state in South Africa. Minister Farakhan came on stage with his entourage, Minister Khalid Muhammd, Minister Billy X/Rabb Muhammad.Khalid departed the stage. I handed the mike to Minister Farakhan. It was the last time I saw Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour.


Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour speaking at the 1979 Melvin Black Forum on Human Rights at the Oakland Auditorium, attended by 5,000 folks to protest the OPD monthly killing of Black men in Oakland. He went off focus about a Pan African Republic, sounded like the Kingdom of Wakanda, but inside South Africa? No matter, we love you Khalid and may Allah be pleased with you.


--Mavin X/El Muhajir
8/19/18
This essay will appear in the forthcoming Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X, Introduction by Dr. Nathan Hare, Black Bird Press, Oakland CA., Introduction by Dr. Nathan Hare, PhD., 2018.



Marvin X reading from his play Salaam, Huey Newton, Salaam, about his last meeting with Huey in a West Oakland Crack House, Odell Johnson Theatre, Laney College, Oakland CA.
photo

Friday, August 17, 2018

Davey D's Manhood training session at Marvin X's Academy of da Corner, Lakeshore


 DJ, San Francisco State University lecturer, Davey D

Today, Friday, August 17, 2018, DJ Davey D enjoyed a manhood training session at Marvin X's Academy of da Corner, Lakeshore Ave., Oakland. The session began when D was standing at X's Wake Up Table conversing as many brothers do when Marvin X sets up shop.  Even when Marvin X is not there, brothers gather, often with sisters too, to converse at the spot near Peet's Coffee and Trader Joe's. Brothers from throughout the Pan African Diaspora converse on a myriad topics at this liberated space, from Ethiopia, Somalia, Congo, Ghana, Jamaica and all parts of Oakland, West, North, Deep East.

Before Davey arrived a couple from Harlem, NY, stopped to check out X's literature exhibit that includes large framed pictures of Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, August Wilson and Amiri Baraka. On one table is a large photo of Dr. Julia Hare, called the female Malcolm X (See her performance on Tavis Smiley's Black Forum, Youtube). Dancer Sister Amina came through and told Marvin X she and her children just saw him in Stanley Nelson's documentary film Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, PBS.

Others who have stopped at Academy of da Corner, Lakeshore, include Angela Davis, Fania Davis, Erika Huggins, Fredericka Newton, Odell Johnson, President Emeritus, Laney College, Fantastic Negrito, Kev Choice, et al.

As Davey D conversed with Marvin X on their upcoming discussion about Black Power for the benefit of D's students at San Francisco State University, an OG brother came up saying Black Power Black Power Black Power. The brothers  returned the greeting. Then the OG said, "What's the word?" He was speaking to OG Marvin X and OG Randy sitting with him behind the table. Davey D stood silently as the OGs went into an automatic  call and response:

What's the word?
Thunderbird!
What's the price?
Thirty twice.
Who drink the most?
Colored folks?

Then Marvin and Randy sang the Grass Roots National Anthem of the 50s and 60s:
WPLJ
really feels good to me
It's really good wine
make you feel so fine so fine so fine
W fada wine
P fada Port
L fada Limon
J fada juice
W P L J
really feel good to me
It's really good wine
make you feel so fine so fine so fine
Ohoooo ohooo ohooo.

Hip Hop Davey D was dumbfounded. He admitted he'd never heard the song before. The OGs acknowledged one had to be in a certain age-grade to know this song. They were sorry this Hip Hop Master had no knowledge of it since it is an iconic song of the 50s and 60s generation in the Hood. The song was included in Marvin X's first play Flowers for the Trashman, produced by the Drama Department at San Francisco State University, 1964. See the Black Arts Movement anthology Black Fire, 1968, and the Black Arts Movement Reader, 2014.

When one of the OGs told Davey D he was traveling in high cotton, again D was dumbfounded. "What are you OGs talking about? I grew up in New York, I don't know nothing 'bout no damn cotton!" OG Randy told him being in high cotton was a metaphor that one was doing good."

Marvin X, who partly grew up in Fresno, California, told Davey D there was more cotton in Fresno than Mississippi. "What you don't want to do is go through the cotton field for the third picking, when there is hardly any cotton left but one had to pick it none the less. I wouldn't have survived slavery, they would have killed me. I picked cotton in Fresno, my mother picked cotton, my grandparents, uncles, even my great-grandparents who were pioneers to the Central Valley from the South. Dr. Nathan Hare told me in Oklahoma they put so called Negroes on buses to Fresno to pick cotton and many never returned to Oklahoma."

Between the song WPLJ and cotton, Davey D was astounded. He had received his manhood training session for the day, a necessary lesson on Black History and Culture for the Hip Hop generation.

--Marvin X
Academy of da Corner, Lakeshore, Oakland
8/17/18


Marvin X on stage at Laney College, Odell Johnson Theatre, X's former classroom, 1981, where he taught and produced his play In the Name of Love, directed by student Ayodele Nzinga

photo Alicia Mayo





Aretha, Angela Davis, Marvin X and the White Farmer from the Central Valley

 



In 1969, Governor Ronald Reagan removed Angela Davis and Marvin X from teaching in academia: he removed Angela from UCLA because she was a black Communist; Marvin was banned from Fresno State University because he was a black Muslim who refused to fight in Vietnam.



Speaking on Aretha Franklin this morning with Amy Goldman, Angela Davis recalled that although Aretha Franklin offered to pay her bail, it was a Central Valley White farmer who put up his land to free her. This reminded me that it was this same White farmer who supported my struggle to teach in Black Studies at Fresno State University, 1969. He also spoke on my behalf at my San Francisco draft trial for refusing to fight in Vietnam. He was attacked viciously by white racists for assisting Angela and myself. They called him a nigger lover and I think he eventually lost his land. For his support, I thank him, honor and respect Roger McAfee for his John Brown consciousness.
--Marvin X
8/17/18

February 24, 1972, Page 1The New York Times Archives



PALO ALTO, Calif., Feb. 23 —Angela Davis, jailed for 16 months while facing murder charges, was released on $102,500 bail here tonight.
As she left the North County Courthouse at 7:09 P.M. she raised a fist in salute and smiled broadly to some 100 cheering supporters before speeding off in a white Mustang automobile.
Her release came several hours after the decision to grant her bail was reached during a four‐hour closed session in the chambers of Judge Richard E. Arnason of Superior Court in San Jose, about 20 miles south of here.
Judge Arnason, who denied a request for bail for the black activist last June, ruled that a state law prohibiting bail in “capital cases” had been invalidated by the State Supreme Court decision last Friday eliminating the death penalty in California.
Miss Davis, who is charged with murder, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy, was required to post $2,500 bail in cash and the rest in a surety bond.
Continue reading the main story

Roger McAfee, the director of the cooperative, which runs a dairy farm with 60 cows, put his property up as collateral in the belief that “the stands Miss Davis has taken will further the cooperative movement in this country.”
Miss Davis, upon learning of her impending release, was “elated and very happy to be out.”

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Black Bird Press News Popular Posts

POPULAR POSTS

Marvin X New Poem: The People of Nowhere


Muhajir,

Where is the love for the LOST people? Thank you for reminding us.--Fahizah Alim 

Poet Marvin X and Muse Fahizah Alim 
 


The people of Nowhere
Live lives shut in shut out
Seldom venture out
From nowhere to some where.
No church no concert movie
Walk in the park 
Eternal house arrest
No chains handcuffs
A mental prison
No guards cept boys on the block
Who go nowhere 
Never leave turf
Cept in body bags
No motel love ballers
Laundry room love
Hot girl upstairs
No where girl
Sex on the dryer
Mama can't dry clothes
Mama go nowhere
No mama time
Jail time sons
Mama time at court
Visit prison sons
No mama time
Nowhere life.
--Marvin X
8/14/18

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

"The Turning Point" The San Francisco State '68 Strike



Marvin X is writing The Untold Story of the Black Student Revolution at San Francisco State University, 1968. Marvin X was a member of the Negro Students Association that became the Black Students Union. He obtained a B.A. and M.A., English/Creative Writing and later taught in the Black Studies Department, 1974-75.

San Francisco State Strike 1968, Black Students & Third World Liberation...

Sunday, August 12, 2018

San Francisco's Hunters Point enjoys the Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience at private house party

Marvin X rocks Hunters Point Private Party




He was the featured artist at a birthday party that morphed into a 1960s Conscious Party (Defined; As per the 60s, a conscious party begins as a normal party, music, food, drink, then the music stops, lights on, brothers and sisters rap revolutionary black nationalism. Music up, lights up, party back on. Later, the same rap session continues on whatever subject at hand.

Before he read, Marvin X thanked his host who requests anonymity. "First of all, I thank the brother for inviting me to his party. I had no idea he was of Black/African consciousness. He has taught me to never underestimate another Black man, especially when you know little about him, though I did suspect the brother was literate because he did accept my books. I was humbled when I entered his apartment and saw my books at the foot of the shrine to his mother.

I am totally impressed with newfound knowledge of my friend. I am impressed this conscious party happened in Hunters Point, so often derided for ignorance, internecine violence, police violence and other actions of socalled hood life. But if you know Bay Area history, Hunters Point is the only hood that revolted in the streets against white supremacy in the 60s. Yes, Oakland gave us the Black Panthers. San Francisco State University gave us the Black Student Union and Black Studies. Hunters Point gave us a mass uprising. Duncan Barber, a co-founder of Black Arts West Theatre in the Fillmore, was featured on the cover of Newsweek about the HP rebellion.

I told the conscious party goers I was impressed on my way down Third Street to the party, especially by the Red, Black and Green on light posts. When I sensed the audience really didn't understand the Red, Black and Green, I said, "Marcus Garvey gave us this flag for the Pan African nation, in conjunction with his philosophy of Africa for the Africans, those at home and those abroad. I read that Marcus Garvey reacted to a white racist song of the time "Everybody Got a Flag Cept a Coon."
Garvey was inspired to give us the African Universal Flag: Red for the blood we've shed after 400 years of enslavement under chattel and wage slavery. Black for us as African and Aboriginal people), green for our land, Africa. I informed them we have the Black Arts Movement Business District in Oakland along the 14th Street corridor, from the lower bottom to Lake Merritt. FYI, as a result of BAR B Q BECKY, Oakland Blacks are still occupying Lake Merritt on Lakeshore Avenue on Sundays. Vendors are there with Black art and crafts. People enjoy the sun, Sundays. Come out and check out the people's revolution. Yet, after repeated requests and offer to pay the cost, Oakland will not fly the Red, Black and Green. So kudos to Hunters Point!
--------------------------------

San Francisco's Hunters Point enjoys 
the wild crazy ride 
of the Marvin X Experience



San Francisco's Hunters Point residents were overwhelmed by the Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience at a private house party. When Marvin X arrived to read, he noticed a senior woman reading intently his Mythology of Pussy. The party was for a friend's birthday, but when the friend spoke he said it was to celebrate Black people. It was the first time X heard his friend express Black/African consciousness. The friend had commissioned at artist to do a painting now hanging on his apartment wall. X didn't know his friend was into Black Art. X saw a little shrine to his friend's mother, with her coin-purse full of pennies. He told us his mother taught him to not beg for pennies but to be self sufficient.

X didn't know his friend hired musicians for the party. X asked the musicians if they would accompany his reading. They agreed but were slightly upset when X jokingly asked they not upstage him. They informed the poet they will be with him all the way and would not upstage him or drown him out as some musicians are known to do to vocalists and/or spoken word artists. The vocalist/guitarist and saxophonist/vocalist got the party started with Home Town Blues. Next tune The Sky is Crying "look at the tears roll down the street."

X grabbed the mike, told the musicians to accompany him with Home Town Blues. He read Parable of A Real Woman. The house of mostly women got silent. One sister was so fired up she joined X at the mike. He told her, "Don't mess with me while I'm reading." She eased her body off him and he continued reading. The party goers listened carefully to the Parable. When he finished to applause, one sister said, "Now, I don't know bout that Parable of a Real Woman. Seems like the woman did everything for free and gave him her money. I don't know about that." (See Parable of a Real Woman by Marvin X, The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Black Bird Press, Oakland CA.)

After hearing Parable of a Real Woman, the musicians were fired up. They told the audience X inspired them to perform another Marvin's classic What's Going On. The guitarist told the sax man to open up What's Going On with a solo, and he did a melodious rendition.

Marvin X couldn't help watching the woman reading his Mythology. When he saw she was at the end of the 18 page pamphlet that is biblotheraphy for those lacking manhood and womanhood training in the new post-patriarchal order, he asked her what she thought? She replied, "You say a lot of things I have thought about but I thought I was crazy to think some things you wrote. Now I don't feel crazy. I know I ain't crazy as you!"

After the host passed out free earrings by a local craft woman, X decided he would give out free literature to all present. Mythology was his choice. People made him autograph it. As it is much stolen, before he departed, a women told him her copy was missing and she needed another. She accompanied him to his car for another copy. X tells everyone, "Don't let your friends still it." Some people have come back three times because their Mythology disappeared. Some told him when they loaned Mythology to their friends, the friends said they were not going to return it.

A caterer was in the kitchen preparing the food. And the food was good Soulfood, except pork for me. A girlfriend told me, "You eat pussy, you might as well eat pork!" But there were Vegan dishes as well as chicken, beef salad, cobbler, cheese cake, shrimp pasta and more.

When the musicians asked if I was ready to do another number, I told them yes. I decided to read Parable of Woman on the Cell Phone. Since the scene is a funeral at which a sister is talking on her cell phone in her coffin, I requested some "Zion" music but the lead musician didn't get it, although the other musician did, as did a deacon seated next to me on the couch. I preceded my reading by apologizing to any religious persons in the audience, with my eyes on the deacon, although I think I demolished him with Parable of a Real Woman. After a few lines, the largely female audience went stone wild. I could hardly read the next line.

I finished and sat down next to the deacon. He had loosened up from his straight demeanor at the start of the party, especially after the caterer brought him some of her delicious food. They seemed to have a personal relationship. No matter, he asked my views on religion, something I suspected he would do.First he asked if I was a Mason. I said no. Then he wanted to know if I was in the Nation of Islam, which I told him I was, having joined Mosque #26, San Francisco, 1967. I told him I'd written a book Beyond Religion, Toward Spirituality. He wanted to know what I said in it. I told him I was going to read my Parable of the Heart, then said if it ain't in  your heart, churches, mosques, temples don't matter. As he departed the couch, he nodded as if he understood the spirituality I laid on him.

And why should I doubt the deacon. Should I doubt him as I doubted the consciousness of the host?

--Marvin X
8/12/18
Hunters Point, San Francisco CA