Thursday, August 29, 2019

Sponsorship for the Dr Cornel West and Marvin X in Conversation



MARVIN X CORNEL WEST EVENT
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$2,000 PLATINUM SPONSOR
Your Company name/logo on all printed publicity materials: web, radio, newspapers, flyers,
posters and press releases
One booth space for exhibiting your company product and information
Full page ad (outside back) in Souvenir Magazine. Priority given to first confirmed sponsor.
Your company name announced from stage
Ten invitations to VIP reception and VIP seating at event
$1,000 GOLD SPONSOR
Your Company name/logo on all printed publicity materials: web, radio, newspapers, flyers,
posters and press releases
One booth space for exhibiting your company product and information
Full page ad in Souvenir Magazine in a primary location
Your company name announced from stage
Five invitations to VIP reception and VIP seating at event
$500 SILVER SPONSOR
Your Company name/logo on printed publicity materials.
One booth space for exhibiting your company product and information
1/2 page ad in Magazine (4x10 or 10x4)
Your company name announced from stage
Three invitations to VIP reception and VIP seating at event
$250 BRONZE SPONSOR
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¼ page ad in Magazine
Your company name announced from stage
One Invitation to VIP reception and event seating

Monday, August 26, 2019


Sent: Sun, Aug 25, 2019 at 8:37 PM
Subject: The greatest enemy of the Black man is the Black man


Let's go to the root of the problem: in any business transaction there are buyers and sellers. Africans sold us, Europeans and Arabs bought us, and this is still going on, down to the present moment. 

One of my North American African brothers visited Africa not long ago, only to discover anyone could be purchased for $35.00. This reality broke his Pan African heart!

 I was humbled a few years ago when a Ghanaian brother said to me in Oakland, "Marvin, I want to apologise to you because my people sold your people!" 

At my Academy of da Corner Lakeshore, Pan Africans meet and discuss all matters. One North American African said to a brother from the Montherland, "Hey man, you ain't never apologized for selling us into slavery!" The brother from the Motherland quickly apologized, and our conversation continued on other matters, such as the fine women who come through Lakeshore by Peet's Coffee and Trader Joe's.

Sun Ra, Black Arts Movement Master Teacher and father of Afrofuturism, used to teach (listen to the audio version of his lectures at UC Berkeley on YouTube) that Africans owe us reparations along with the Europeans, Arabs, et al. 

But as his student and associate (he told me I would be teaching in the Black Studies Department at UC Berkeley, along with him, 1972, even though Governor Ronald Reagan had me removed from lecturing in the Black Studies Department at Fresno State University, 1969, same time he removed Angela Davis from lecturing at UCLA)--I say North American Africans need to give ourselves Reparations for the pain, suffering, trauma and grief we have caused each other during our 400 year sojourn in this wilderness of North America. Our Reparations to each other transcends money, we need to ask for forgiveness for all the wrongs we have done to each other throughout the centuries down to the now: for the snitching during slavery down to the now, turning state's evidence on each other; for violating the laws of trust, love and respect that should have existed between us brothers and sisters; for inflicting emotional spiritual and physical abuse on our partners and children, siblings and parents, friends and others whose trust we betrayed in our persona as ungrateful bastards.
I wish somebody would hep me!

But let us stay focused, Harriet told us she could have freed more slaves if they had known they were slaves!"

How many more could Marcus Garvey have freed if they had known they were slaves? Negroes sold him out, yes, the Negro leadership, don't make name them!

We were not with Elijah, Malcolm X or Mlk Jr. Who are we with?
Nobody! Democratic party, Republican? Who? Democratic Socialists? White Supremacy Nationalists?  Who?

Who can save the North American African? Can he save himself?

As Langston Hughes titled
his book I Wonder as I can Wander! 
Black man in the wonderland, do not drift without aim or purpose!

Islamic teaching says the greatest Jihad is to win one's own soul! 
 So your greatest challenge is to conquer your own soul!
Thus your greatest enemy is yourself!
Forget about the white man, focus on you, yes, you are the priority!
--Marvin X.
8/25/19

Friday, August 23, 2019

Dr. Justin Gifford interview with poet-playwright Marvin X

University of Nevada, Reno, Professor. Dr Justin Gifford, conducted his second interview with poet-playwright Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner Lakeshore Dr, Oakland. Justin had a few final questions as he concludes research for a biography of Eldridge Cleaver, essayist and Black Panther Party Minister of Information. Marvin was the first person Cleaver hooked up with upon his release from Soledad Prison, 1967. They co-founded the Black House, a political and cultural center that became chief venue for the black cultural revolution in the Bay Area, visited by Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Apprentice Bunchy Carter, Sarah Webster Fabio, Chicago Art Ensemble, Reginald Lockett, Judy Juanita, et al. Playwright Ed Bullins and Marvin's partner from Black Arts West Theatre, Ethna Wyatt, aka, Hurriyah Assar, lived at Black House, along with Eldridge after he was forced to move there from the white house he shared with his white woman, Attorney Beverly Axelrod.

In his research, Gifford discovered Cleaver lifted Charles Colson's conversion testimony for his own story of discovering Jesus Christ in the moon. Marvin informed the Black Studies professor that he transcribed Cleaver's "Moonshot" and Cleaver instructed him to entitle it The Golden Shower!
Dr. Gifford, author of books on Iceberg Slim, told Marvin, "You were with him at critical points in his life, so you are critical throughout my biography of Cleaver."

Marvin was shocked to learn from the professor that Eldridge Cleaver's son, Ahmed Maceo Eldridge Cleaver, joined the ancestors last October, leaving behind three wives and fourteen children.





Photos Adam Turner

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Of Fathers and Daughters


  Nisa and Muhammida, daughter of Nisa and Marvin X

Three daughters of Marvin X: Attorney Amira jackmon; Nefertitti Jackmon, Executive Director of Six Square, Black Cultural District Austin Texas; Muhammida El Muhajir, permanent resident of Accra Ghana.

Daughters of Marvin X, Nefertitti and Amira, with Dr Cornel West,  San Francisco State University, Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness Concert, 2001.

As per daughters, fathers blinded by patriarchal mythology can totally escape the genius of their daughters, although in truth none of our children can escape the DNA of parents, including ancestral hopes and dreams of freedom. Children will consciously or unconsciously carry out such dreams. Parents shall be amazed when they see children carry out ancestral and parental dreams, even when children claim such dreams as their own, yes, in their ignorance and arrogance, although, at some point they will exclaim, "Oh, I see why I'm doing the things I do: I got this from you! Am I cursed?"
Parents are surely amazed and perplexed to see their children grapple with parental and ancestral dreams. Yet, parents may feel good that they understand the conundrum of their children's lives. I'm totally amazed that my mother said, "Son, you don't need a wife, you need a maid, secretary and mistress!" Mom told me this before I was twenty years old, no matter I had one son at 18 and another by 20, and thought I should be married." Mom said no matter, you don't need to get married!
Although I have the most beautiful children any father could want, thank God for the beautiful mother's, at 75 years old, I must confess Mama was right. Even though my children suffered fatherly abandonedment and neglect in their early years, even in their adulthood, they need fatherly advice,guidance and inspiration. I am there for them and they come to me for such, directly or indirectly.

I'm happy to share my wisdom with them so they can finish the journey of our family and pass it on to the next generation.
Marvin X
8/20/19


.

__,_._,___

KPFA's Cat Brooks interview with Marvin X

https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=317516

 Marvin X at KPFA Radio, Berkeley
Photo Adam Turner

"I have been listening to KPFA's 6PM
 News Hour since 1962, after graduating from high school in Fresno CA and returning to Oakland where I'd spent part of my childhood on the streets of West Oakland.

When I entered Merritt College on Grove Street, my friends were Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. We sat in classes together, front row, three deep, and challenged the instructor to get one word out of line. We did independent study so we knew our shit!"


KPFA's Cat Brooks interview with Marvin X


Monday, August 19, 2019

Black Test for White Supremacy Type II

 Marvin X at University of Chicago
photo Burrell Sunrise





1. If you believe Jesus is white but simultaneously say He is without color, you suffer white supremacy type II.

2. If you believe fake American history that the Pilgrims were not illegal migrant invaders of Indigenous people's land, you suffer white supremacy type II

3. If you believe that the Democratic party and the Republican party are not both white supremacists, you suffer white supremacy type II.

4. If you shop all day at white, Asian, Latino and Arab stores but don't spend one penny at a black store or business, you are a white supremacist type II.

5. If you desire a light skinned baby with "good hair", you suffer white supremacy type II.

6. If you protest mass murder in America but don't protest black on black killings in Chicago; don't protest the trillion dollar USA's military budget to kill around the world, you are a white supremacist type II.

7. If you protest the police killings of black people, but don't teach youth the tone test, i.e, depending on their tone of voice when stopped by the police, they can be 1, arrested, 2, killed, or 3, released, you are a white supremacist type II.

8. If you think after 400 years of free and nearly free labor, a "good job for life" is your goal, you suffer white supremacy type II.

9. If you want to unite with everyone except your own kind, you suffer white supremacy type II.

10. If you wonder why everybody hates niggas, and you hate niggas too, yet everybody pimps niggas, but you won't pimp yourself, you suffer white supremacy type II.

Marvin X

8/19/19

Sunday, August 18, 2019

BAMBD Street Vendors




The time has come for Pan African street vendors to unite for cultural and economic prosperity. Ancestor Amiri Baraka told us "to stop thinking like we Americans." If we were truly Americans there would be no need to renew the Voting Rights Act, since we've been here in involuntary and voluntary servitude since 1619, 400 years of loyalty to the English slavemasters, now known as Americans.

I say let's think in a Pan African paradigm. We want the BAMBD to be an African Marketplace on the !4th Street corridor, initially in the Center City area and especially on the eastside of Lake Merritt that was claimed by Pan African vendors and Pan African people en masse after the Bar B Q Becky incident of blatant white supremacist behavior rooted in arrogance, racial superiority and ignorance.

Pan African vendors want to vend daily as Euro and Latin Americas do in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland. Vending and entrepreneurship is one avenue Pan and North American Africans can overcome economic discrimination. Everybody wants to sell to us but don't want to buy from us. Too often we don't want to buy from us! You know the white man's ice is colder, or the Arab's, Chinese, Korean, Latin and/or Indigenous. But look at the plethora of Pan African vendors at Bay Area and Oakland festivals, e.g., Art and Soul, Pride, Joy, Juneteenth, Umoja, Pan African Family Day, Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, et al. Vendors want to vend and now have SB946 to do so legally on the streets of Oakland, California.

Some people are concerned that with the BAMBD corridor being gentrified by development of commercial buildings and market rate housing, the BAMBD idea is dead in da water.

But street vending in the BAMBD can be an immediate and long range cultural/economic project that must be included in the City of Oakland's Downtown Plan for the next 25 to 50 years. Few Pan Africans or North American Africans (my term for so-called Negroes) will be able to pay market rate rents or purchase buildings in the downtown area. We give honor and respect to Geoffery Pete, the Pan African/North American African man who occupies a piece of the rock with his venue Geoffery's Inner Circle at 14th and Franklin Streets in the heart of the BAMBD, with the Joyce Gordon Gallery downstairs.

Most of us will not be able to model Geoffery Pete and Joyce Gordon but life has infinite possibilities , though immediately we can vend on the street in the BAMBD, along the 14th Street corridor. We can build from the street to occupy skyscrapers, two, three, four....The multi-cultural Greenlining Institute owns a piece of the rock near 14th and Webster, across from the upcoming Carmel 600 unit market rate apartment complex. The BAMBD CDC, Inc., headed by Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, acquired a Community Benefits Agreement with Carmel Developers to rent office and business space in their development at below market rate. We were not able to obtain an equity agreement with Carmel especially for below market rate housing, the critical need in Oakland in general and the downtown area especially where many Pan Africans reside, mostly in subsidized apartments or SRO's (single room occupancy hotels). The City of Newark, NJ model requires developers to reserve 20% of new housing for below market rate. The survival of a community requires cultural and economic prosperity but housing is critical. Oakland's Chinatown is prospering party due to housing and economics. Chinatown or the Asian community combines cultural tradition and mores with economic activity, e.g., one can cross the street in their tradition, sell goods outside on the streets of their businesses, double park and little or no police presence. The BAMBD must emulate the Asian model.
What Pan African businesses cannot supply, street vendors should supply so that our money circulates more than once. Pan Africans must support Pan Africans, yes, we have a trade deficient with other ethnic groups! Most importantly, we have a trade deficient with each other. Don't say you love Black/African but won't buy from Black/African.

What is the purpose of the BAMBD Vendors Association? These are thoughts off the top of my head. Let us meet and come to a consensus for a BAMBD Vendors Association that is about cultural consciousness and economic prosperity.

1. A membership of arts/crafts/food and commercial merchandise vendors. We must also activate the Community Component of the Original Black Studies mission, thus we appeal to scholars to make themselves available at their individual Academy of da Corners, wherein knowledge is dispensed on the street, intellectual dialogue as well, an open mike of ideological exchange. We need community scholars to connect with people in the street to share their wealth of wisdom with common folk, some of whom have never met a black scholar in their life, not to mention a black author.

2.Membership should provide the vendor with reduced fee or free booth space in the BAMBD and other cultural events, festivals, conferences, concerts.

3.Member fees may cover permit costs, taxes, insurance, license fees, health insurance, burial insurance.

4.Member will purchase goods collectively at wholesale or below wholesale prices.

5.Members will acquire housing and transportation collectively.

6.Senior members will be cared for with respect due.

7.Member children will be trained in the Pan African entrepreneurial tradition.

8.Members will be provided security while vending in the BAMBD and elsewhere.

9.The Movement Newspaper will be the official organ of the BAMBD Vendors Association, wherein members can advertise and promote their events.

10. As per leadership, we know who traditionally runs the African marketplace. Therefore, we call upon African women to operate the BAMBD Vendors Association.

Saturday, August 17, 2019

Fredericka Newton on Huey Newton


Fredericka Newton in conversation with Zoe' Samudzi


BPP Chair Elaine Brown


Dr. Huey P Newton. Marvin X recounts his last meeting with Huey in a West Oakland Crack house, see his docudrama One Day in the Life, also the one act play Salaam, Huey, Salaam
(with Ed Bullins)

The most tragi-comic part of her narrative conversation with Zoe'S was her role as codependent when Huey fell victim to Crack addiction. She realized he became another person that she couldn't deal with.  But his addiction forced her to become an R.N. Fredericka blames stress for his addiction, the pressure of being the leader of the group labeled the biggest threat to the national security of the United States. She loved him because he and all the BPP members were willing to give their lives for the people.

On the 30th Anniversary of his death,  Fredericka Newton gave a passionate narrative on her tragi-comic marriage to Black Panther Party Co-founder Dr. Huey P. Newton. Before an overflow crowd at Oakland's African American Museum and Library, Fredericka said Huey was the love of her life. In the midst of the black liberation movement, they tried to have love and joy. Their attempt to be normal included working at a service station until his persona was unmasked by a customer. Huey was shy, quiet and funny, especially when he didn't try to be humorous, she said. But because of the USA's pressure on the BPP, including the assassination of dozens of party members, the Newton's were under great stress, still Huey did his best to be a father to her son by a previous relationship. And Huey had no problem with his Jewish mother-in-law and black musician father-in-law with a gold tooth.
He was for all oppressed people. Fredericka was not able to speak on BPP history prior to hooking up with Huey. But he kept good archives that were acquired by the Green Library at Stanford University. In the Q and A, she was asked about the role of women in the BPP. At one point, women ran the BPP, especially when Elaine Brown became Chair. It took a little adjustment for men to submit to female authority but they did, she said. In Elaine Brown's autobiography A Taste of Power, she told the BPP males, "I got all the guns and all the money, now fuck with me!"
--Marvin X
8/1719



Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Please help Marvin X reprint his books











Your donation of any amount can be tax deductible. Estimated printing
cost for one thousand copies each @
$5, 000 per is $50,000. Your generous support of this project will be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Marvin X
Author/Publisher
Black Bird Press
for more information please call 510-575-7158
Email me@ mxjackmon@gmail.com