National Prisoner Book Day

Bay Area Black Authors
prepare to deliver books
to Juvenile Hall
Left to Right, Rev. Brandon
Reems, Center of Hope Church; Marvin X and Ptah Allah El are
ministers in the First Poet's Church of the Latter Day Egyptian Revisionists















Bay Area Black Authors
at Joyce Gordon Gallery
gathered to honor slain
Oakland Post Editor
Chauncey Bailey

















Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz)


























George Jackson,
Soledad Brother









Eldridge Cleaver,
author Soul on Ice

National Prisoner Book Day

Bay Area Black Authors and the Post Newspaper Group are calling for a National Prisoner Book Day to bring awareness to the 2.4 million incarcerated men and women in American prisons, the largest prison system in the world. BABA organizer Marvin X and PNG publisher Paul Cobb say the National Prisoner Book Day should be declared ASAP to assist in the transformation of the incarcerated. Pending a General Amnesty, we must work to increase the literacy and appreciation of literature among our brothers and sisters locked down in the American Gulags.

We know the majority of the incarcerated include persons with minimum education. Most suffered drug abuse at the time of arrests and many qualify as dual diagnosed, i.e., suffering drug addiction and mental illness. The jails and prisons are now serving as mental wards without proper mental health treatment.

The February 16-22, 2011, edition of the Post Newspapers featured a front page article entitled
Men Who Read Books in Prison and Transformed Their Lives. Since Malcolm X or El Hajj Malik El Shabazz is the best known example of a man transformed by reading, we suggest National Prisoner Book Day be established May 20, the day after his birthday.

Stanley Tookie Williams

We call upon all writers, publishers, educators, media persons, religious leaders to help in the designation of May 20 as National Prisoner Book Day by disseminating books into jails and prisons on this day throughout the United States.

If needed, we should gather signatures, especially from authors, to have President Obama make the declaration.

Until we are able to liberate the captives, we can at least help them liberate their minds with conscious literature.
--Marvin X,
Bay Area Black Authors
jmarvinx@yahoo.com
www.nationalprisonerbookday.blogspot.com





Men Who Read Books in Prison and transformed their lives

This Saturday, the Journal of Pan African Studies and Chauncey Bailey Book Fair will have Bay Area Black Authors selling books that will be donated to juvenile hall, county jail and prisons, also after school programs. The public is invited to attend to help decrease illiteracy and promote literature as a tool of transformation in the lives of incarcerated men and women.

Festival organizer, author, poet, activist Marvin X says, "Many imprisoned brothers write to me for books. And I don't mind sending books because they have come by Academy of da Corner and told me books have transformed their lives. Ideally, I wish they would, as Paul Cobb says, crack a book before they are booked for Crack.

FYI, the American prison movement began at Soledad Prison's Black Culture Club that championed reading conscious literature. Eldridge Cleaver was a member of that club, along with Alprentis Bunchy Carter, both became radical activists upon their release, joining the Black Panther Party. George Jackson was a petty criminal before incarceration but became self educated from books. The author of Soledad Brother, he is regarded as the messiah of the prison movement. Books elevated his consciousness.

My brother, Ollie, a lifelong criminal, said he was never the same after reading John Hope Franklin's From Slavery to Freedom. We know Tookie Williams gave up the gang life and after reading began a writing career that got him nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature. The world knows how books changed the life of Malcolm Little, the man who became Malcolm X after reading.

The short time I spent in prison for refusing to fight in Vietnam, I read. One of my friends at the federal prison made an announcement to the brothers, "Listen up, brothers, if you want a book on any subject come to Marvin X's locker. He's got books on every subject!"

The Journal of Pan African Studies Poetry Festival and Chauncey Bailey Book Fair is Saturday,
February 19, Noon til 6pm. Admission free. The will be an open mike/speak out, along with music, exhibits and performance by the Academy of da Corner Reader's Theatre.

Program

12 Noon
Social/refreshments/music

1pm
Walk for Chauncey Bailey
2pm
Open Mike
3pm
Authors speak
3:30
Journal of Pan African Studies Poetry Reading & Reader's Theatre

Participants: Jerri Lange, Michael Lange, Al Young, devorah major, Geoffrey Grier, Ptah Allah El, Eugene Allen, Renaldo Ricketts, Anthony Spires, Paradise Jah Love, Tureadah Mikell, Ramal Lamar, Hunia Bradley, Alona Clifton, Mechelle LaChaux, Timothy Reed, Fritz Pointer, Aries Jordan, Phavia Kujichagulia, Ayodele Nzingha, Itibari M. Zulu, Niyah X, Maisha, Cecil Brown, Marvin X. Music by Kwic Time, Augusta Collins, Rashidah Sabreen.

Sponsors: Post Newspaper Group, Black Bird Press, Journal of Pan African Studies, Academy of da Corner, Hug a Thug Book Club, It's About Time, East Side Arts, Kakakiki Slave System, San Francisco Recovery Theatre, Lower Bottom Playaz, Oakland Local, Black Hour, Black Dialogue Brothers, San Francisco State University Ethnic Studies Department. email: jmarvinx@yahoo.com. www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com


Bay Area Black Authors to Visit Juvenile Hall


At the request of Center of Hope's Rev. Brondon Reems, Bay Area Black Authors will visit Oakland's Juvenile Hall to speak with and donate books made available by the Post Newspaper Group. The PNG obtained books from 13 local authors at the recent Journal of Pan African Studies Poetry Festival and the Chauncey Bailey Book Fair held at the Joyce Gordon Gallery on February 19.

Rev. Reems is ecstatic Bay Area Black Authors will accompany him to share with the juveniles. For BABA organizer, Marvin X, the trip is reminiscent of the trip he and editors of Black Dialogue Magazine made to Soledad Prison in 1966, where they addressed the Black Culture Club chaired by Eldridge Cleaver and Alprentis Bunchy Carter. "We are happy to work with the Center of Hope to help improve literacy and appreciation of literature among the population at Juvenile Hall."

Rev. Reems also asked BABA to conduct a workshop at his church for members who are budding writers. Along with members of his church, Rev. Reems will attend the March 19, Women's History event produced by BABA, Academy of da Corner and the Post Newspaper Group. The event will be held at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th Street, 3-6 pm. It features the Bay Area women poets published in the Journal of Pan African Studies Poetry Issue. Poets include Ayodele Nzingha, Phavia Kujichagulia, devorah major, Toreadah Mikell, Aries Jordan and Jasmin Conner. The women have asked BABA male authors to perform Marvin X's classic poem For the Women. It will be read by Paradise, Geoffrey Grier, Eugene Allen, Ptah Allah El, Jermaine, Michael Lange and Marvin X.

The afternoon event will showcase scenes from For Colored Girls, performed by Jasmin Conner,Vagina Monologue, performed by Aries Jordan, Woman on the Cell Phone, enacted by Mechelle LaChaux, and Opal Palmer Adisa's Bathroom Graffiti Queen, performed by Ayodele Nzinga.

There will be a panel discussion of Womanhood Rites of Passage, facilitated by media living legend and author Jerri Lange. Author Timothy Reed will also read from her novel. The event is free, but the public is encouraged to purchase books from local authors and donations will be accepted.

Saturday, March 19, 3-6pm
Joyce Gordon Gallery
406 14th Street
Oakland