Tuesday, November 3, 2020
Neelam Drill for Justice
Monday, November 2, 2020
Vote for me, I'll set you free and Coming soon: A Documentary on life and times of North American African Poet Marvin X: The Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience
Coming soon: The Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience
A Documentary Co-Produced by Marvin X and Ken Johnson
I am thankful for my creative association with Ken Johnson and all of the artists who have been a part of my productions over the many years. We have no budget for this project but if it is successful we will share any funds generated with every person that has contributed to this creative property. Part I includes my Crazy House in America Concert at the African American Culture Center, San Francisco, 2003. FYI, the Director of the Fulton Street AACC was London Breed, now Mayor of San Francisco. Guess we will need a cameo appearance by Da Mayor, especially since we have footage of former Mayor Willie Brown for later parts of this documentary, and also footage of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf. This documentary will be about 18 hours in length. Part I is 2 hours, 13 minutes. Finally, we may want to interview some of you about your relationship with this peripatetic, indefatigable poet. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call or email me: 510-575-7148, jmarvinx@yahoo.com. If you have any suggestions on how to fund this project, let me know ASAP. But this project shall be done with or without funds since we have 99% of the material in my archives.Sincerely,Marvin XPart I, The Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experiencea documentary on the life and times of a North American AfricanPoet, Playwright, Producer, Publisher, Educator, Activist, a Co-Founder of the Black Arts Movement and Co-Founder of Oakland's Black Arts Movement Business District
Written, Directed, Produced and Performed by Marvin XKen Johnson, Associate Producer and Executive Editor of DocumentaryAssociate videographers, photographers/editorsWilliam HammonsKhalid WaajibPtah Allah El, Adam Turner, Kamau Amen Ra, RIP
Participants and PerformersDr. Cornel WestDr. Ayodele NzingaCat BrooksJames RhodesPerformersTacuma King, percussionistKele Nitoto, percussionistNajie, baritone sax, RIPDestiny Muhammad, harpSuzzette Celeste, speaker, dancerRaynetta Rayzetta, dancer, RIPGeoffery Grier, actorJudy Jackmon, actorDr. Salat Townsend, actor, RIPJames W. Sweeney, actor, RIP
photo Adam Turner
photo Adam Turner
photo Jahahara Alkebulan Ma-at
"We support Rebecca Kaplan for Mayor. She is often more supportive of Blacks than other Black Oakland City Council members.
Paul Cobb, Publisher of Oakland Post, City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan and Marvin X, Publisher of Black Bird Press News and Review
Marvin X blasts off to Jupiter at the 35th Melanin Conference on Zoom today
photo Adam Turner
Dr. Cornel West and Marvin X talk before their Conversation at Geoffrey's Inner Circle, December 6, 2019
photo Adam Turner
photo Jahahara Alkebulan Ma-at
"We support Rebecca Kaplan for Mayor. She is often more supportive of Blacks than other Black Oakland City Council members.
photo Adam Turner
Sunday, November 1, 2020
We live in the house of death
We live in the house of death
Only talk in the hood
who died
who got out of prison
no other conversation
Death lived here long before Covid19Death came with ColumbusCortezChange your name Mis Cortez leader of the Green Squad
You La Raza La Raza La Raza
we Poder Negro Poder Negro Poder Negro
Digame Cortez
Sun Ra said everything is in names
Death is names
How many Africans died in the name of Jack's son John's son
How many escaped into the night of Harriett Tubma
Only to eat death in the swamps Woods forests
After Lincoln death was strange fruit
Jim Crow death
Picnic lynch nigger death
Migration death north
Never going back to Alabama death
No more Mississippi death
Mississippi Goddamn Nina Simone said
Smiling at White woman Emmit Til death
Jet Magazine open coffin death
Chicago redlining death
Raisin in the Sun death
Death of dreams
Desire
Inspiration motivation death will
Let me drink to death
Libation to death
What a wonderful life!
And you think capitalism is money
they have all the money
print it at will
capitalism is death mental death toxic death virus in the mind death
print your money escape white death white dollar death
paper dollar death
bitcoin blackcoin
black only trade in blackcoin
I don't truth blackcoin
might steal all yo money
white man never steal
didn't he steal you yo mama daddy sista brother
he good guy in white hat never steal
blackcoin steal
blackcoin black no good
bitcoin safe white man safe
yet white ice colder than black man ice
white suffice!
--MARVIN X
11/1/20
Saturday, October 31, 2020
Friday, October 30, 2020
The Monkey Mind Media and Interlocking Directorates
The Monkey Mind Media and Interlocking Directorates
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
I love books
Lewis Michaux inside his African National Memorial Book Store,Harlem NY
I love books. I spent my youth and young adult years reading books on every subject. When I got to Harlem I spent my money on books, clothes and taxis. But books mattered to me the most. Now I devoured the Richardson's Marcus Garvey Books in San Francisco. Furthermore, Julian Richardson and his wife Raye mentored Bay Area Black radicals and printed our publications such as Black Dialogue Magazine, Journal of Black Poetry and our chapbooks of poetry as well as reprinting the works of Marcus Garvey and the classic by George M James Stolen Legacy. But once I hit Harlem NY, I was overwhelmed with Lewis Michaux's African National Memorial Book Store. Of course I also fell in love at the Mosque#7 bookstore operated by Larry X Prescott, aka Akhbar Muhammad.
Monday, October 26, 2020
Wednesday, October 21, 2020
They Say you from 'Orleans
photo Gene Hazzard
They Say You From 'Orleans
They say are you from 'Oleans
I say no no dirty south here
They say chit'lin's
I say no
No chit'lin circuit on my tour
Nigga laugh out this world
No chit'lin circuit on my tour
Cali negro true n true
mama born in central valley
maternal people valley pioneers
cotton pickers from Arkansas Oklahoma
farmers don't you hear
Came to central valley
busloads to pick cotton
more cotton in valley than mississippi
don't you know
tent cities in fresno
came up cant you see
tent city ain't always
when you don't want to be
families in tent cities
lovers for life
rise up from tents
soon husband wife
children go to school
play pro ball don't you know
strong country boys
represent the pro
Me
Central Cali nigga
Oaktown too
Central Cali nigga
city country boy through n through
Edison High basketball team
Oaktown too
Prescott Lowell Jr. High
7th Street nigga
true n true
Played basketball New Century Defermery Park
Bill Russell Pointer brothers, Jim Hadnot, Paul Silus, Aiken brothers too
Made Merritt College team
Mack niggas too tall fa me
Jim Toliver could dunk
guard
dunk like he 6'3''
Toliver hardly 5'6"
me 5'6" too
Toliver
jumped high into a tree
Toliver A.C Scott guards we
Lowell Jr. High
Joe Ellis on team
Warrior's Joe Ellis
what a dream what a dream
I won free throw contest
9 out of 10
pretty good ugh
9 of 10 free throw line
got a trophy for ma win
New Century nigga don't sin
Back to broder man
ain't no 'Orleans nigga
ain't from Lake Charles
ain't from Monroe LA like Huey Newton
My podna from Merritt
he like pig shootin'
Ain't from Grambling
Jackson State
Mississippi
Ain't from Texas Southern
down street from daughter's house
Wrote book bout Eldridge Cleaver
three weeks for My Friend the Devil
Funniest book of 2009
Jimmy Garett said
Didn't need no footnotes didn't tell no lies
People said Marvin
if Cleaver the devil
who are you
People said Marvin if Cleaver the devil
who are you
If you can't figure it out
i might be the devil too!
Dress like you from 'Orleans boy
where you from
be true to me
I might be from the river
Might be from the deep sea
Might be from the forest
might be from the woods
might be from the valley
might be from the hood
Don't matter where I'm from
valley or the sea
I'm a man
M.A.N
Main
Hustler
ain't no pimp
don't wait for mine
hustle sea to sea
See me in the mornin
'Orleans Bourbon Street
might want etouffee for breakfest
bananas french toast
what about eggs n rice
cali nigga you know
daddy from kentucky
rice country
mama central valley
no grits don't ya know
we ate rice breakfast lunch dinner
friends called me Moto
Chinese man don't you know
never saw a nigger eat rice
day and night
no grits
rice butter sugar n cream
daddy kentucky nigger
blue grass n white rice
nothin nice
Mama central valley girl
picked cotton cut grapes
her world
grandfather Murrill
99 when he died
1941
Fresno Bee Newspaper
gave him pride
Bee said respected negro
black and whites alike
What manner of man
Ephraim Murrill
Great grandfather
in his stride
North Carolina to Arkansas to Cali
pioneer was he not
I am his seed
DNA all the way
did not know him
but he knew me everyday
cotton grape fields
Ephraim general of the land
yes I'm his seed
great son of this man.
I stand on his shoulders
my grandpa too
no matter we rescued him drunk El Gato Negro
Grandpa still true.
Was it pain of cotton grape fields made him drink gamble all night
We sat outside El Gato Negro while Uncle Stan got grandpa from gambling drunk fight
We all lucky to be alive
Thank God for today
None of us would be here
if devil had his way.
Thank God he is Mighty
Thank God he is True
Thank God he protects fools and children
like me and you!
--Marvin X
10/21/20
Saturday, October 17, 2020
El Muhajir, The Migrant
El Muhajir/The Migrant
Marvin X at Ocean Beach, San Francisco
photo Adam Turner
We planned to leave for years
|
Monday, October 12, 2020
I Am Marcus Garvey, a monologue by Marvin X
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2018
I Am Marcus Garvey
I Am Marcus Garvey, A Monologue by Marvin XThe Most Honorable Marcus GarveyPoet, Playwright Marvin Xphoto Kamau Amen Ra (RIP)I am Marcus Garvey, Jamaican born African man. The winds of Jamaica blew my soul, body
spirit far and wide. I was a printer then took off to see the world, to unravel the riddles of the
Black man, African man, trapped deep down in the belly of the beast called colonialism.
I traveled the Americas, Costa Rica, Panamá, Honduras. I saw the suffering workers in these
lands, studied their condition and determined to free them. I went to England where I met Duse
Muhammad Ali, the Pan African who taught me One God, One Aim, One Destiny, Africa for the
Africans, those at home and those abroad. I wrote in Ali’s Oriental Times and Review, so did
Booker T. I wanted to meet Booker T so I went to the USA but Booker T. died before I could
meet him. I was heartbroken not to meet the man who wrote Up From Slavery, who founded
Tuskegee, who said do for self, you can accomplish what you will.I wanted to know what happened to the Black man’s land, how did it become the pleasure
of Europeans, the richest continent in the world. I wanted to make the Black man independent
standing tall in his own land, not under the boot of Europeans. Africa for the Africans, those at
home and those abroad.
Where is our flag? In my disgust at the white man’s song “Everybody
got a flag cept a coon,” God blessed me with the Red, Black and Green, Red for blood of one
hundred million, Black for all African people, Green for our Motherland. Fly the Red, Black and
Green, let the ancestors know you know them, honor and respect them, the living and yet unborn.
I am Marcus Garvey. Let our African legions march, let black nurses heal the wounds of our despair,
let the African poets sing songs of freedom, let the colonialists dred the sound of our valiant voices
singing in the winds of freedom, independence and joy.I am Marcus Garvey, let my newspaper The Negro World spread the truth of our Blackness,
African pride and glory. We shall spread the words of freedom throughout the Pan African world,
millions shall join the UNIA, United Negro Improvement Association, millions in the USA,
Caribbean, Europe and the Motherland.No matter those who oppose us, the winds of time shall oppose them in their wickedness,
sycophants of colonialism, yes, bootlickers who think they are smart but only outsmart themselves.
Their idea of freedom is yet slavery for independence is the dream of every true man and woman.
No man is free under the yoke of another. Yet some intellectual black fools hate the idea of true
freedom. They set traps for me at every turn, in league with the FBI and other agencies around the
world.The devil sent Negroes to sabotage my ships The Black Star Line. Black spies infiltrated our UNIA.
The FBI began with their spies in my midst, along with the jealous, envious Negroes who hated
Blackness. We call them Black men with white hearts. Somebody said these Negroes are white men
dipped in chocolate! In Spanish we call them coffee con leche!I am Marcus Garvey. What was the Harlem Renaissance without me? I published all the poets in my
newspaper. It was the spirit of Blackness that made the Renaissance possible, not white patronage
that made us exotic birds of paradise.I am Marcus Garvey. With the help of sell out Negroes, call ‘em niggas, the USA falsely charged me
with mail fraud and jailed me, then deported me. I passed away in London, never visiting Africa.
Yet today, the Red, Black and Green is the Universal African flag of liberation. Long live Black
Nationalism, long live Pan Africanism. One God, One Aim, One Destiny. Africa for Africans, those
at home and abroad. Up you mighty Race, you can accomplish what you will!Yes, look for me in the whirlwind, look for me in the storms, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes in
diverse places. Look for me in the eyes of our children who carry the torch of freedom in the morrow
of their bones!--Marvin X
10/7/18