“We will scream and cry, murder, run through the streets in agony, if it means some soul will be moved.”
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Amiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka, previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at several universities, including the University at Buffalo and Stony Brook University. He received the PEN/Beyond Margins Award in 2008 for Tales of the Out and the Gone. Baraka's plays, poetr…
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culture · African-American writer (1934–2014) · poet · writer · playwright · screenwriter · music critic · journalist · prose writer · essayist · novelist · critic · also Amiri Baraka, Imamu Amear Baraka, LeRoi Jones, Everett Leroy Jones, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Imamu Baraka
Born 7 October 1934 · Died 9 January 2014 · Q354783
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2026· 2 entries
JSTOR Daily: Some Other Blues: New Perspectives on Amiri Baraka
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2022· 1 entry
Publishers Weekly: Books by Imamu Amiri Baraka and Complete Book Reviews
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2021· 1 entry
Jazz: Amiri Baraka
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2014· 8 entries
SFGate: 'For Amiri Baraka,' a poem by Diane di Prima
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The American Conservative: Amiri Baraka’s Poetry
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Salon: Activist author Amiri Baraka dead at 79
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Democracy Now: Remembering Amiri Baraka Part 2 Featuring Sonia Sanchez, Felipe Luciano, Larry Hamm, Komozi Woodard
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CNN: Poet Amiri Baraka, political activist, dead at 79
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At Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey, after being hospitalized in the facility's intensive care unit for one month before his death
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Died 2014-01-09.
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“A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.”
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2009· 1 entry
Was again asked about the quote, and placed it in a personal and political perspective:
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2003· 1 entry
Baraka's daughter Shani, aged 31, and her lesbian partner, Rayshon Homes, were murdered in the home of Shani's sister, Wanda Wilson Pasha, by Pasha's ex-husband, James Coleman
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2002· 3 entries
Legislation to abolish the post was introduced in the State Senate and subsequently signed by McGreevey, becoming effective July 2, 2003
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Scholar Molefi Kete Asante included Baraka on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans
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And 2003) involved controversy over a public reading of his poem "Somebody Blew Up America
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1999· 2 entries
“The music was the score, the actually expressed creative orchestration, reflection of Afro-American life ... That the music was explaining the history as the history was explaining the music. And that both were expressions of and reflections of the people.”
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Baraka wrote in the Introduction that he wished to show that "The music was the score, the actually expressed creative orchestration, reflection of Afro-American life
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1998· 2 entries
Awarded Black Literary Hall of Fame (1998).
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“s role was to be feminine and submissive. How far do you think black male attitudes have changed since then, since the Black Panther movement?”
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1996· 1 entry
Baraka contributed to the AIDS benefit album Offbeat: A Red Hot Soundtrip produced by the Red Hot Organization
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1990· 1 entry
Co-authored the autobiography of Quincy Jones, and in 1998 he appeared in a supporting role in Warren Beatty's film Bulworth
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1989· 2 entries
Won Langston Hughes Medal (1989).
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Baraka won an American Book Award for his works as well as a Langston Hughes Award
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1987· 1 entry
Together with Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison, he was a speaker at the commemoration ceremony for James Baldwin
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1985· 1 entry
Baraka took an indefinite visiting appointment in Rutgers University's English department in 1988; over the next two years, he taught a number of courses in African American literature and music
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1984· 1 entry
Awarded American Book Awards (1984).
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1980· 2 entries
Baraka published an essay in the Village Voice that was titled Confessions of a Former Anti-Semite
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To assist "the struggling Africana Studies Department"; in 1983, he was promoted to associate professor and earned tenure
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1979· 2 entries
Discussing his protests "against what he perceived as racism in the Africana Studies Department, as evidenced by a dearth of tenured professors"
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Became a lecturer in the State University of New York at Stony Brook's Africana Studies Department in the College of Arts and Sciences at the behest of faculty member Leslie Owens
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1974· 1 entry
Baraka distanced himself from Black nationalism, embracing Marxism–Leninism in the context of Maoist third-world liberation movements
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1967· 2 entries
Baraka (still LeRoi Jones) visited Maulana Karenga in Los Angeles and became an advocate of his philosophy of Kawaida, a multifaceted, categorized activist philosophy that produced the "Nguzo Saba", Kwanzaa, and an empha
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Lectured at San Francisco State University
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1966· 1 entry
Baraka married his second wife, Sylvia Robinson, who later adopted the name Amina Baraka
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1965· 3 entries
Awarded Guggenheim Fellowship (1965).
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Baraka changed his name from LeRoi Jones to Amiri Baraka
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Was an outgrowth of his response to the debate about the future of black liberation
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1964· 1 entry
And received the Obie Award for Best American Play in the same year
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1963· 1 entry
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
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1962· 1 entry
“The Myth of a 'Negro Literature'”
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1961· 1 entry
Baraka co-authored a "Declaration of Conscience" in support of Fidel Castro's regime
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1958· 1 entry
Married Hettie Cohen, with whom he had two daughters, Kellie Jones (b
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1954· 1 entry
Joined the United States Air Force as a gunner, reaching the rank of sergeant
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1951· 1 entry
But transferred in 1952 to Howard University
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1934· 1 entry
Born 1934-10-07.
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