Baraka, Amiri << buh RAH kuh, uh MEER ee >> (1934-2014), was an African American author who gained fame for his powerful plays about race relations in the United States. His original name was Everett LeRoi Jones, and he first wrote under the name LeRoi Jones. In 1967, he changed his name to Imamu Ameer Baraka. During the 1970’s, he altered this name to Amiri Baraka.
Baraka first became known for three short, violent plays about racial conflict between Black people and white people. These plays—The Slave, The Toilet, and Dutchman—were all first presented in 1964. In Dutchman, Baraka warned Black people about the danger he saw in attempts to imitate white culture. He promoted the cause of Black nationalism in several plays that reflected an extreme hatred of white people. The most praised of these plays was Slave Ship (1969), which deals with the transportation of enslaved Africans to the New World. During the 1970’s, Baraka rejected Black nationalism and composed plays that were filled with Marxist ideology.
Baraka also wrote a novel, The System of Dante’s Hell (1965). Some of Baraka’s short fiction was collected in Tales of the Out & the Gone (2006). Many of his poems appear in Transbluency: The Selected Poems of Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones (1961-1995), published in 1995; and Funk Lore: New Poems 1984-1995, published in 1996. He analyzed Black music in America in Blues People (1963), Black Music (1967), and The Music: Reflections on Jazz and Blues (with his wife, Amina Baraka, 1987). He also wrote The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka (1984). Baraka’s collected poetry was published in 2015 in SOS: Poems, 1961-2013.
Baraka was born on Oct. 7, 1934, in Newark, New Jersey. He died on Jan. 9, 2014.
