Amiri Baraka
October 7, 1934 - January 9, 2014
“The artist’s role is to raise the consciousness of the people. To make them understand life, the world and themselves more completely. That’s how I see it. Otherwise, I don’t know why you do it.” - Amiri Baraka
Courtesy of the Panopticon Review.
Amiri Baraka chose to attack the problems of civil rights head-on in his literary work. Influenced by the Marxist-Leninist philosophy of post-colonialist thinkers, Baraka believed that the Black race could only achieve self-determination through a revolution in all aspects of life, including literature.
A discussion of Amiri Baraka’s past is incomplete, however, if it fails to neglect that Amiri Baraka was not his original name. Baraka’s original name was LeRoi Jones, and his name change reflects both a pivotal change in the subject matter of his poetry in attitude towards non-African-American poets.
The LeRoi Jones Years - 1950s to 1960s:
The New York School:
In his early twenties, Jones was quickly adopted into the Beat culture of New York City’s Greenwich Village. Some of Jones’s earliest and most important work grew out of collaborations with members of the New York School, but arguably his most important friendship was with Frank O’Hara. In an autobiography published by Frank O’Hara’s roommate Joe Leseur, he considered “Frank [to be] closer to Roi than to Ted or any of the others, Bill Berkson excepted.” [1] Jones and O’Hara worked together on the play The Toilet, which Jose Esteban Muñoz suggests may be based on a sexual relationship that Baraka had with O’Hara. [2] This is interesting because Jones considered himself to be a heterosexual.
Jones’s biggest impact on O’Hara was in the development of O’Hara’s philosophy of “Personism,” which was born out of one of the many friendly conversations that Jones had with O’Hara. In O’Hara’s “Personal Poem,” the first of his to be in the “Personist” style, O’Hara describes how “LeRoi [came] in and [told] me Miles Davis was clubbed last night.” Jones's strong bond with white New York School poets such as Frank O'Hara is unique to his early years.
Amiri Baraka (left) and Frank O'Hara (right).
Courtesy of Andrew Epstein.
[2] Muñoz, Jose Esteban. "Cruising the Toilet." Duke University Press. 1 June 2007. 28 October 2019.
Preface to a Twenty-Volume Suicide Note (1961):
Inspired by his fellow poets in the New York School, Jones tackled civil rights head on in his poems. This is evidenced in Jones’s first poetry collection, Preface to a Twenty-Volume Long Suicide Note. One poem in particular that voice Jones’s concerns and exemplify Jones’s style of poetry - “Hymn for Lanie Poo.”
In "Hymn for Lanie Poo," Jones discusses the problem of Black men finding their own identity in a predominantly-white America. Identity speaks out as the primary in theme of the poem in two places. In section 4 of the poem, Jones writes “I go down / to Gansevoort St. / I stare out / at the horizon / I make believe / it is my father. / This is known / as genealogy.” [3] Jones is addressing one aspect of identity that troubled African-Americans: namely, whether to identify with their ancestors in Africa. A more direct clue to the theme of heritage comes in the epigraph, “Vous êtes des faux Nêgres,” which translates as "You are fake negroes." [3] According to Jay Wright, this specific line comes from an Arthur Rimbaud poem where he comes to terms with his own ancestry, and so one can assume that Jones refers to his own struggle with ancestry by adding this line. [4] In addition to struggles with identity, Jones discusses how African-Americans face pressure to be more westernized by whites. In "Hymn for Lanie Poo," this comes in the motif of the sun. In section 1, Jones tells the reader to “Beware the evil sun… / turn you black” [3]. The sun darkens your skin, so this could be interpreted as a white man telling a Black man to "get out of the sun" because it will lead him towards his African roots. This motif is carried all the way through the end of the poem, where sun has become the “the huge & loveless / white-anglo sun.” [3] This change signifies the effect that constant repetition of negative African-American stereotypes has on African-Americans - namely, they begin to abandon their own identity to the point where they cannot return to their heritage.
It’s important to note that, in Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, Jones offers a counter to the destruction of Black culture - jazz. Elements of jazz feature very prominently in Jones’s poems: he often uses the word “blues” in his titles, he references jazz artists (Coltrane in “Hymn for Lanie Poo”), and musical motifs. Jazz is the one part of American culture that African-Americans can lay claim too, and LeRoi Jones will hold on to that part of identity for as long as he can.
[4] Wright, Jay. “Love's Emblem Lost: LeRoi Jones's ‘Hymn for Lanie Poo.’” Boundary 2, vol. 6, no. 2, 1978, pp. 415–434. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/302330.
Baraka in Flux - 1960s:
Dutchman (1964):
Jones’s interactions with the New York School underwent a complete paradigm shift as he increased his involvement with Black Power movements. As Jenny Quilter points out, the straw that broke the camel’s back for Jones was the assassination of Malcolm X, and it was this incident that caused Jones to change his name to Imamu Amear Baraka, which then became Amiri Baraka. [5] Around that time, however, Jones produced one of his most influential works, his play Dutchman.
In Dutchman, Jones brings a racial and sexual conflict between White-Americans and African-Americans to its extreme. The play centers around Lula, a young white woman who tries to seduce a Black man named Clay. Just as they begin to feel some sort of love for each other, their entire relationship goes down south as Lula harasses Clay on the subway and asks him to "do the nasty" with her. [6] In response to Lula, Clay gives a lengthy polemic against white people. The play climaxes with Lula stabbing Clay and commanding the subway passengers to throw him out.
Jones draws out the tension in several different ways. One of the ways that sticks out is how Lula constantly insults Clay’s intelligence as an African-American. As Clay probes Lula’s identity in the beginning, she constantly refers to his remarks as “dull.” [6] She also interprets Clay’s remarks and actions as being purely sexual, reducing Clay to a lustful animal. One could also interpret that Jones exaggerated this negative stereotype by having Clay respond in stereotypical ways - when Lula finally mentions having sex in her tenement, Clay responds by saying “We finally got there,” as if he had been waiting for Lula to broach the topic. [6] On the topic of sexuality, Jones also draws on the stereotype of the aggressive Black man who prays on young white women. The setting of the play is an empty subway car, which is almost analogous to a back alley where a white woman could be raped. Lula is dressed in extremely promiscuous clothing - she is only wearing a skirt, and she constantly sexually goads Clay throughout the play. Lula does not hesitate to use extremely derogatory terms to refer to Clay, including the n-word and “Uncle Tom.” [6] Lula also constantly reminds Clay of the fact that his ancestors were slave, a sign that she is clearly jealous that Clay is of a higher class than she. [6] All of these details build up to the central idea that Jones is getting at with this play. The key to unlocking this idea lies within Clay's pent-up anger at the end of Dutchman. In his rant, Clay fights back with just as much vitriol and hatred as Lula used in the play's beginning - he uses racist terms like "ofay" and expresses his desire to kill Lula if he ever got the chance [6]. Clay also returns to Baraka's recurring themes of blues and jazz. He points out how whites ignorantly borrow and praise the music of Black musicians and at the same time ignore the fact that the music attacks their own culture. As Clay points out, both Charlie Parker and Bessie Smith would gleefully kill white people [6]. With Dutchman, Jones makes one message loud and clear: white people, especially women, are dangerous, and to defeat the oppression of white people, Blacks must rise up and take arms. Clay is proven right in the end when Lula violently stabs him.
[6] Baraka, Amiri. Dutchman. London: Faber and Faber, 1964.
Lula and Clay feel somewhat attracted towards each other.
From the Dutchman movie
Lula goes insane, asking Clay to "do the nasty." The passengers watch appalled.
From the Dutchman movie
Clay breaks; he expels his rage at Lula.
From the Dutchman movie
Cuba Libre (1960):
Baraka’s involvement in politics can be traced back to his 1960 trip to Cuba, during which he wrote the memoir “Cuba Libre.” His trip was organized by the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, which organized American support for Fidel Castro. Early in the piece, Baraka implies that this is his first rodeo with heavy political activism. Baraka is shocked to hear the “deafening crazy [screams]” of “Cuba Si, Yanqui no,” “Venceremos,” and so on. [7] When Baraka is confronted by the revolutionary Olga, he is immediately chastised for maintaining a wavering stance on U.S.-Cuban relations. [7] Baraka’s only defense is “I’m a poet…what can I do? I write, that’s all. I’m not even interested in politics.” [7] The revolutionary clamor is infectious, however, and even Baraka fails to resist joining in. On the bus ride from Yara, Baraka shouts “Viva Calle Cuaranta y Dos” and “Viva Cinco Puntos.” [7] Baraka also repeatedly blames the overbearing heat as the reason for his participation, a possible reference to the moment in The Stranger by Albert Camus when Meursault shoots the Arab. This again points to the fact that Baraka is experiencing a shift in his political views. By the end of the piece, Baraka’s opinion on politics has completely underwent a paradigm shift. He decries how “revolution” has been portrayed as an “inconceivably ‘romantic’” idea by the “ruling class.” [7] His distrust of America’s politics has clearly been amplified by his Cuba visit, and Baraka is less fazed by the idea that literature can be used to communicate ideology.
Jones dining with Cuban revolutionaries, 1960
Courtesy of Viewpoint Magazine
Criticism and Controversy - 1960s to the present:
"Black Art":
Baraka began to display his new beliefs in his 1969 poetry collection Black Magic. Arguably the most important poem in the collection is aptly-titled “Black Art,” in which Baraka discusses the need for a distinctly-African-American flavor of literature. Within the first few lines, Baraka does not hesitate to express his disdain for western poetry. The first section parodies the mundaneness of non-Black poetry: “teeth or trees or lemons…” [8] The poem is littered with aggressive phrases where Baraka says things like “we want poems that kill…,” a reflection of how Baraka has acknowledged poetry’s affinity for political activism. [8] Within a few lines, Baraka is taking out his anger on whites, Jews, and others who have denied his race equal rights for so long. At the end of the poem, Baraka makes one final, desperate, plea: “We want a black poem. And a black world.” [8] Much of the rest of the poetry is structured similarly.
It is vital to discuss the political context during which Black Magic was written. In 1968, two ardent supporters of civil rights, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., were assassinated, causing African-Americans around the country to riot. Blacks were killed by white police in Detroit, Chicago, and several other cities during race riots. Baraka's anger at watching his countrymen being killed probably boiled over while he was writing the collection. The other major event that is taking place when Baraka was writing his poem is the Vietnam War. The fact that America was preoccupied with an unpopular war without having first dealt with civil rights would have frustrated Baraka immensely. Some of the imagery in "Black Art" directly parallels the war - he conjures up images of airplanes dropping fire and bombs on people, torture, and “beasts in green berets." [8] In this context, he is comparing this violent imagery to the political message of his poetry, but nevertheless, the reader cannot help but have the image of machine-gun fire ripping apart flesh etched into their brain. [8]
[8] Baraka, Amiri. “S.O.S.: Poems 1961-2013.” New York: Grove Press, 2014. Print.
Final lines of Amiri Baraka's "Black Art"
Reading of "Black Art" accompanied by Sonny Murray's band
Courtesy of ThoughtCo.
The Black Arts Movement:
In 1965, Amiri Baraka carried out his message in "Black Art" by creating the Black Arts Movement. Baraka was inspired by Langston Hughes’ seminal essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” In it, Hughes calls on African-Americans to embrace their heritage in their works by comparing the “mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America” to a need to embrace whiteness. It is important to emphasize that, while Black artists were numerous prior to the creation of the BAM, this was the first time they had been organized under one banner.
The BAM sought to promote a distinctly-Black flavor of literature, arts, and film. One of those flavors is the expansion of jazz. As Amiri Baraka writes in “Jazz and the White Critic,” jazz music “cannot be completely understood (in critical terms) without some attention to the attitudes that produced it.” In fact, Baraka’s most expansive work other than his literature comes in his criticism of jazz, especially blues. Miles Davis’ influential album Kind of Blue came out in 1959, just when LeRoi Jones was first becoming prominent in the literary world. Another unique art form to come out of the Black Arts Movement was the “Blaxploitation” genre of movies. “Blaxploitation” combined extremely-stereotyped African-American attitudes with hip-hop, jazz, and uniquely Black musical genres to create an experience that could not be replicated by white directors (Briggs 1). Probably the most iconic “Blaxploitation” film is Gordon Parks’ Shaft, which was made in 1971. The film’s protagonist, John Shaft, reflects the Black macho and low-class heroes espoused by many Black power organizations. Shaft prefers his vigilante justice over traditional detectives, takes on an equally-stereotyped mafia on his own, and has copious amounts of “sleazy” sex (Biggs 3-5). “Blaxploitation” movies were universally panned for this extremely-negative depiction of African-Americans: even Black Panther leader Huey Newton claimed that “Blaxploitation” movies were “part of a conspiracy” to ruin the “revolution” (Briggs 3). One could suggest that Detective Shaft is the film equivalent of Dutchman's Clay, who is also depicted as the stereotypical "angry Black man."
[9] Hughes, Langston. "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain." Poetry Foundation. 1926. 8 November 2019.
[10] Baraka, Amiri. "Jazz and the White Critic." University of Virginia. 1960. 8 November 2019.
[11] Briggs, Joe Bob. “Who Dat Man?: Shaft and the Blaxploitation Genre.” Cinéaste, vol. 28, no. 2, 2003, pp. 24–29. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41689575.
Poster for Gordon Parks' influential film Shaft
Courtesy of Google Images
Header image courtesy of Julian C. Wilson/AP.
To learn more about the other artists of color of the New York School: