Blackwell Reference Online

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Amiri Baraka, also known as Imanu Amiri Baraka, a playwright, writer, poet, and one of the leaders of the Black Revolt of the 1960s, was born in Newark, New Jersey, on October 7, 1934, under the name Everett LeRoi Jones. He studied philosophy and religious studies at Rutgers, Columbia, and Howard universities. He joined the US Air Force in 1954, but was discharged after being accused of being a communist sympathizer. Baraka moved to Greenwich Village, where he began writing. In 1964 his play Dutchman won an Obie Award. In 1965, after the assassination of Black Muslim leader Malcolm X , Baraka moved to Harlem and became involved in the Black Nationalism movement. In Harlem, Baraka founded the Black Arts Repertory Theater School, which became an influential breeding ground for talented black artists and writers. Baraka rose to prominence during the Modern Black Convention movement, which began in 1966 with the Black Arts Convention in Detroit and the National Black Power Conference summit in Washington, DC. Under Baraka's leadership, factions of the Black Arts and Black Power movements merged, fostering the politics of black cultural nationalism that began to define the Modern Black Convention movement. Baraka's movement focused on developing a number of organizations that focused on the formation of black nationality, among them, the United Brothers and the Committee For a Unified ... log in or subscribe to read full text