Race

Amiri Baraka's Somebody blew up America

Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) was born in 1934 in Newark, New Jersey. He grew up in its working class district and attended University in Washington. He quickly became a prolific writer of plays, novels, poetry, reviews and cultural criticism.

He won an Obie for his play Dutchman and also published Blues People, a landmark study of the social origins of the blues. He edited the magazine Yugen and established the Totem press, which published such writers as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and many more.

After the assassination of Malcolm X he became more and more influenced by African Nationalism and Sunni Islamic ideas and was given his present name. Since that time he has been a political activist. The FBI has for decades kept a growing file on his activities, especially since his views moved away from narrow nationalism towards Marxist ideas.

Amiri Baraka once said "I see art as a weapon of revolution".

In his piece 'State/meant' Baraka nails his colours as a poet to the revolutionary mast,

"The Black artist's role in America is to aid in the destruction of America as he knows it. His role is to report and reflect so precisely the nature of the society, and of himself in that society, that other men will be moved by the exactness of his rendering and if they are black, grow strong through this moving, having seen their own strength, and weakness; and if they are white, tremble, curse, and go mad, because they will be drenched with the filth of their evils."

To read the rest of this feature and a selection of Baraka's poetry order The Race issue now.