Amiri Baraka (born Everett Leroy Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014) was also known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka. He was an American writer who created poetry, plays, fiction, essays, and music criticism. He wrote many books of poetry and taught at several universities, including the University at Buffalo and Stony Brook University. In 2008, he received the PEN/Beyond Margins Award for his book Tales of the Out and the Gone. Scholars describe his plays, poetry, and essays as important works that helped shape African-American culture.
Baraka’s career lasted about 52 years. His writing often focused on topics such as Black freedom and White racism. Some of his well-known works include The Music: Reflections on Jazz and Blues, The Book of Monk, and New Music, New Poetry. These works explore ideas from society, music, and literature.
Baraka’s writing has received both praise and criticism. In the African-American community, some people compare him to James Baldwin and consider him one of the most respected and widely published Black writers of his time. However, others have said his work includes themes of violence, misogyny, and homophobia. His short time as Poet Laureate of New Jersey (2002–2003) was controversial. He read his poem Somebody Blew Up America? publicly, and some people accused him of antisemitism. Critics and politicians also criticized him for suggesting that the U.S. and Israeli governments might have known about the September 11 attacks before they happened.
Biography
Baraka was born in Newark, New Jersey, where he attended Barringer High School. His father, Coyt Leroy Jones, worked as a postal supervisor and lift operator. His mother, Anna Lois (née Russ), was a social worker. Jazz interested Baraka as a child. He wanted to copy Miles Davis: "I wanted to look like that too — that green shirt and rolled-up sleeves on Milestones … always wanted to look like that. And be able to play 'On Green Dolphin Street' or 'Autumn Leaves' … That gorgeous chilling sweet sound. That's the music you wanted playing when you was coming into a joint, or just looking up at the sky with your baby by your side, that mixture of America and them changes, them blue African magic chants." The influence of jazz can be seen throughout his work later in life.
He won a scholarship to Rutgers University in 1951 but transferred in 1952 to Howard University. His classes in philosophy and religious studies helped lay a foundation for his later writings. While at Howard, he ran cross country. He subsequently studied at Columbia University and The New School without taking a degree.
In 1954, he joined the United States Air Force as a gunner, reaching the rank of sergeant. This was a decision he would come to regret. He once explained: "I found out what it was like to be under the direct jurisdiction of people who hated black people. I had never known that directly." This experience was yet another that influenced Baraka's later work. His commanding officer received an anonymous letter accusing Baraka of being a communist. This led to the discovery of Soviet writings in Baraka's possession, his reassignment to gardening duty, and subsequently a dishonorable discharge for violation of his oath of duty. He later described his experience in the military as "racist, degrading, and intellectually paralyzing." While he was stationed in Puerto Rico, he worked at the base library, which allowed him ample reading time, and it was here that, inspired by Beat poets back in the mainland US, he began to write poetry.
The same year, he moved to Greenwich Village, working initially in a warehouse of music records. His interest in jazz evolved during this period. It was also during this time that he came in contact with the avant-garde Black Mountain poets and New York School poets. In 1958 he married Hettie Cohen, with whom he had two daughters, Kellie Jones (b. 1959) and Lisa Jones (b. 1961). He and Hettie founded Totem Press, which published such Beat poets as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. In cooperation with Corinth, Totem published books by LeRoi Jones and Diane di Prima, Ron Loewinsohn, Michael McClure, Charles Olson, Paul Blackburn, Frank O'Hara, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Ed Dorn, Joel Oppenheimer, and Gilbert Sorrentino and an anthology of four young female poets, Carol Berge, Barbara Moraff, Rochelle Owens, and Diane Wakoski. They also jointly founded a quarterly literary magazine, Yugen, which ran for eight issues (1958–62). Through a party that Baraka organized, Ginsberg was introduced to Langston Hughes while Ornette Coleman played saxophone.
Baraka also worked as editor and critic for the literary and arts journal Kulchur (1960–65). With Diane di Prima he edited the first twenty-five issues (1961–63) of their small magazine The Floating Bear. In October 1961, the U.S. Postal Service seized The Floating Bear #9; the FBI charged them for obscenity over William Burroughs' piece "Roosevelt after the Inauguration." In the autumn of 1961 he co-founded the New York Poets Theatre with di Prima, the choreographers Fred Herko and James Waring, and the actor Alan S. Marlowe. He had an extramarital affair with di Prima for several years; their daughter, Dominique di Prima, was born in June 1962.
Baraka visited Cuba in July 1960 with a Fair Play for Cuba Committee delegation and reported his impressions in his essay "Cuba Libre." There he encountered openly rebellious artists who declared him to be a "cowardly bourgeois individualist" more focused on building his reputation than trying to help those who were enduring oppression. This encounter led to a dramatic change in his writing and goals, causing him to become emphatic about supporting black nationalism.
In 1961 Baraka co-authored a "Declaration of Conscience" in support of Fidel Castro's regime. Baraka also was a member of the Umbra Poets Workshop of emerging Black Nationalist writers (Ishmael Reed and Lorenzo Thomas, among others) on the Lower East Side (1962–65).
His first book of poems, Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, was published in 1961. Baraka's article "The Myth of a 'Negro Literature'" (1962) stated that "a Negro literature, to be a legitimate product of the Negro experience in America, must get at that experience in exactly the terms America has proposed for it in its most ruthless identity." He also stated in the same work that as an element of American culture, the Negro was entirely misunderstood by Americans. The reason for this misunderstanding and for the lack of black literature of merit was, according to Jones:
"In most cases the Negroes who found themselves in a position to pursue some art, especially the art of literature, have been members of the Negro middle class, a group that has always gone out of its way to cultivate any mediocrity, as long as that mediocrity was guaranteed to prove to America, and recently to the world at large, that they were not really who they were, i.e., Negroes."
As long as black writers were obsessed with being an accepted middle class, Baraka wrote, they would never be able to speak their mind, and that would always lead to failure. Baraka felt that America only made room for white obfuscators, not black ones.
In 1963 Baraka (under the name LeRoi Jones) published Blues People: Negro Music in White America, his account of the development of black music from slavery to contemporary jazz. When the work was re-
Death
Amiri Baraka passed away on January 9, 2014, at Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey. He had been in the hospital's intensive care unit for one month before his death. At first, the reason for his death was not shared publicly, but it was noted that Baraka had long struggled with diabetes. Later information stated that he died due to problems that occurred after a recent surgery. His funeral took place at Newark Symphony Hall on January 18, 2014.
Controversies
Baraka's work has been criticized for containing racist, homophobic, antisemitic, and misogynist ideas. He expressed extreme and hostile feelings toward white people, believing that Black people were morally better than white people, who he thought were naturally evil.
In his 1984 autobiography, he wrote:
A woman asked, "Can't any white people help?" Baraka replied, "You can help by dying. You are a cancer. Your death would help the world."
In a 1965 essay, he wrote:
Most American white men are trained to be fags. For this reason, it is no wonder their faces are weak and blank. The average white person thinks of Black men as potentially wanting to rape every white woman. This is true, in the sense that Black men should want to take everything from white people. For most white people, the guilt of being robbed is the same as the guilt of being raped. They know deep down that they should be robbed, and white women understand that only through rape can they be violently taken from.
In 2009, Baraka explained the quote in the context of events from the 1960s, including the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Patrice Lumumba, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy, as well as the lynching of Black people and national oppression. He said his views changed when he became a Marxist after recognizing class struggles within the Black community.
Baraka supported the idea of Black men raping white women, believing it was a politically acceptable act. He treated white women as symbols of racial conflict rather than as human beings. He suggested that white women would enjoy being raped by Black men, calling it "sexually exhilarating—a God-like gift." If a white woman did not enjoy it, Baraka claimed she was racist. Bell hooks, in her book Ain't I a Woman?, noted that Baraka celebrated a harmful stereotype of Black men as strong and violent, a stereotype that white people had used to justify racism.
Baraka often used homophobic language in his writing, such as "faggot," usually against white men but also against Black men he disagreed with. Some critics said his homophobia might have been linked to repressed homosexual desires.
In the 1967 poem The Black Man is Making New Gods, Baraka accused Jews of stealing African knowledge and claiming it as their own. He called Jesus a "fag" and "the dead Jew," arguing that Jesus was a Jewish trick on Christians. He supported Nazi-like descriptions of Jews as a "dangerous germ culture."
In his 1972 essay collection Raise, Race, Rays, Raze, Baraka used phrases like "jew-slick" and "jeworiented revolutionaries." In a 1980 essay titled Confessions of a Former Anti-Semite, Baraka said he had married a Jewish woman, Hettie Cohen, but felt estranged from her after the assassination of Malcolm X. He later divorced her and left their two biracial daughters with her. He claimed Jewish people supported Black civil rights to gain privilege and criticized Israel, calling Zionism a form of racism. He said his anti-Semitic views were temporary and that he had repudiated a poem containing antisemitic lines.
In July 2002, ten months after the September 11 attacks, Baraka wrote a poem titled Somebody Blew Up America? that was accused of antisemitism. The poem criticized racism in America and included lines suggesting Israel had knowledge of the attacks. Baraka claimed he believed Israelis and President George W. Bush knew about the attacks in advance. He denied the poem was antisemitic, saying it used the word "Israeli" instead of "Jew."
Antisemitism watchdogs like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called the poem antisemitic, pointing out that the conspiracy theory about "4000 Israeli workers" was originally about Jews. In response to the poem, New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey tried to remove Baraka from his position as Poet Laureate. After legal challenges, the position was abolished in 2003. A court ruled that state officials could not be sued over the decision, and the Supreme Court declined to review the case.
Journalist Richard M. Cohen criticized Baraka's poem as "anti-Semitic bleat" and said, "Baraka is a bigger idiot than he is a dangerous anti-Semite."
Honors and awards
Baraka was the second Poet Laureate of New Jersey from July 2002 until the position ended on July 2, 2003. When people tried to remove Baraka from the role, a group of nine advisors named him poet laureate of the Newark Public Schools in December 2002.
Baraka received honors from many respected organizations, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Langston Hughes Award from the City College of New York, the Rockefeller Foundation Award for Drama, membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Before Columbus Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.
A short part of Amiri Baraka’s poetry was chosen for a permanent art display created by artist Larry Kirkland in New York City’s Pennsylvania Station. The line, “I have seen many suns use the endless succession of hours piled upon each other,” is carved in marble. This installation includes quotes from works by several New Jersey poets, such as Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Robert Pinsky, and Renée Ashley. It was part of the renovation and rebuilding of the New Jersey Transit section of the station, completed in 2002.
Legacy and influence
Amiri Baraka's work has been the subject of much debate and disagreement, but his impact on literature is clear. He helped start the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s, which promoted a perspective focused on Black identity and influenced many writers. Critic Naila Keleta-Mae says Baraka's legacy includes expressing ideas that were difficult to discuss, which may have affected how his work is viewed today. For example, Baraka was not included in the 2013 anthology Angles of Ascent, a collection of African-American poetry. In a review, Baraka criticized editor Charles H. Rowell for being critical of the Black Arts Movement and for trying to separate political themes from artistic value. Rowell's introduction to the anthology mentions the "fetters of narrow political and social demands" that he believes limit artistic creativity, showing a belief that overly political works are less valuable. Critic Emily Ruth Rutter says Angles of Ascent is important for African-American studies but suggests adding Baraka and others to ensure students understand his influence on modern poetry.
In Rain Taxi, Richard Oyama criticized Baraka's focus on political ideas over artistic expression, calling his career a warning about the "worst tendencies" of the 1960s, such as rejection of others and a focus on separation rather than unity. Oyama said Baraka's work suffered because he prioritized ideology over art, which he believes does not last as long as artistic value.
Baraka's work in many artistic fields and his activism helped him influence many people. In an interview with NPR, Baraka said he had inspired many individuals. When asked what he would want written on his epitaph, he joked, "We don't know if he ever died," showing how important his legacy was to him. NPR's obituary for Baraka said his influence continued throughout his life, noting that the Black Arts Movement "never stopped." Baraka also helped African-American writers gain access to publishing opportunities that had previously been difficult to achieve.
For the 60th anniversary of Baraka's book Blues People, trumpeter Russell Gunn premiered a musical piece called The Blues and Its People at the Apollo, inspired by the work.