Menelik shabazz biography of martin luther king
BLACK stars ON the silver SCREEN Part of the Fisheye Film Festival
I am not your Negro
The ‘Independent Cinema Office’ eloquently summarises it as follows;
‘Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson and with unprecedented access to author and public intellectual James Baldwin’s original work, award-winning filmmaker Raoul Peck (Murder in Pacot, Moloch Tropical, Lumumba), has completed the cinematic version of the book Baldwin never wrote.
In 1979 when literary agent Jay Acton asked Baldwin to write about the lives and assassinations of his friends Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Medgar Evers, he responded with a 30-page letter explaining why he couldn’t. This manuscript, entitled Notes Toward Remember This House, was entrusted to Peck by the writer’s estate and serves as the backbone of the film. Alongside an exploration of these key Civil Rights figures, Peck also gives us a fascinat- ing picture of Baldwin himself while uncovering the deeper narrative of America’s troubled relationship with race.
In a form as radical as the man that inspired it, Baldwin’s words are juxtaposed with interviews, music, archive foot- age and images of present-day America to create an overwhelmingly powerful, essayistic mosaic that lays bare the persistent violence and systemic inequality suffered by America’s black population.
“One of the best movies about the civil rights era ever made” ***** Guardian ‘
@Bucks New University
Sunday 16th October,
2.00pm -4.30pm
@Bucks New University
BOOK NOW AT: www.ticketsource.co.uk/date/405218
Burning an Illusion
Tuesday 18th October
@Bucks New University
8.00pm – 9.45pm
Written and directed by Menelik Shabazz, Burning an Illusion is a 1981 ground-breaking British film about a young British-born black woman’s love life, mostly shot in London’s Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove communities. Classification 15
BOOK NOW AT: www.ticketsource.co.uk/date/405518 ALL SCREENI
~IB~ 'Making It Happen~ interview with film maker MENELIK SHABAZZ ~ 'The Story of Lovers Rock' & 'Burning an Illusion'
It was great catching up with Menelik Shabazz, writer and producer of the film, ‘The Story of Lover’s Rock.’ Menelik is an incredibly determined person who managed to fund his films through using a great deal of ingenuity accompanied by a direct approach. It was really interesting finding out more about this remarkable film maker and his latest project certainly catches the imagination!
Menelik, I see you were born in Barbados, at what age did you come to the UK?
I came to London from Barbados when I was 6 and was educated in the UK.
How did you become interested in film?
I got interested in film by chance. I was expecting to go to an art college and failed one of my exams so went to North London College to retake. Some guys came into one of my classes with new Sony Porta Pack video equipment which at the time was a revolution in technology. It was the first time you could freely access video equipment, the previous equipment being heavy duty, so it really opened the door and that is how my interest developed.
You seem to have great social awareness, has this always been the case?
Yes, at school I was a radical at the age of 14 and got involved with activists all the way through my education. As a child I was influenced by people like Malcolm X, where the name Shabazz comes from and the Black power movement. I continued my involvement right up until I started to make films.
ABOVE: Menelik Shabazz (left) Dennis Bovell (right)
Making films was a very positive way to channel your feelings and the issues you wished to address. You did quite a few documentaries initially didn’t you with youth. Can you speak about these briefly?
That’s right. My first film was, ‘Step Forward Youth,’ which was a way of channelling my frustration at the way young people were treated by the police, but ma
MLK/FBI – Film Review: A demonstration of how the educated black male is public enemy number one
The MLK (Martin Luther King) story is well documented throughout American fiction. His ‘I have a dream speech’ has become something of a linguistic phenomenon for generations exploring a brighter future, where equality is achieved for future generations; a utopian world where people are given opportunities to excel without the drawbacks that race has placed on non-white people throughout modern history.
In this new documentary, “(MLK/FBI)” we are taken into a living nightmare, that I was partially privy to, thanks to the works of Ava DuVernay with David Oyelowo’s portrayal of King in SELMA (It is still haunting that Oyelowo was not afforded an Oscar nomination for his performance) but I digress.
Academy nominee, Sam Pollards’ black and white documentary symbolically and factually provides us with the sinister realisation that King was indeed the subject and target of J.Edgar Hoover’s FBI establishment, built on the foundations of obtaining intelligence on anyone who was deemed ‘subversive’ and a threat to the American way of life. The declassified files are available and what they reveal is disturbing but not entirely shocking.
Black (Negro) subversion: The ideology that black people who speak out against white supremacy or any other injustice are extremist, dangerous and to be destroyed.
In the FBI files, it appears that Hoover expressed grave concern about King as a subversive character and that he was the most ‘dangerous liar..negro in America’ and indeed a dangerous threat to the American agenda. He became a walking target for the FBI and subconsciously he knew it.
The film then unveils something I wasn’t aware of – Kings friendship with white communist party member Sam Levison and how this lands on the FBI’s radar. Worse than a black mes .