Democracynow.org - January 10, 2014
We spend the hour looking at the life and legacy of Amiri Baraka, the
poet, playwright and political organizer who died Thursday at the age of
79. Baraka was a leading force in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s
and 1970s. In 1963 he published "Blues People: Negro Music in White
America," known as the first major history of black music to be written
by an African American. A year later he published a collection of poetry
titled "The Dead Lecturer" and won an Obie Award for his play,
“Dutchman." After the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, he moved to
Harlem and founded the Black Arts Repertory Theatre. In the late 1960s,
Baraka moved back to his hometown of Newark and began focusing more on
political organizing, prompting the FBI to
identify him as "the person who will probably emerge as the leader of
the pan-African movement in the United States." Baraka continued writing
and performing poetry up until his hospitalization late last year,
leaving behind a body of work that greatly influenced a younger
generation of hip-hop artists and slam poets. We are joined by four of
Baraka’s longtime comrades and friends: Sonia Sanchez, a renowned
writer, poet, playwright and activist; Felipe Luciano, a poet, activist,
journalist and writer who was an original member of the poetry and
musical group The Last Poets; Komozi Woodard, a professor of history at
Sarah Lawrence College and author of "A Nation Within a Nation: Amiri
Baraka and Black Power Politics"; and Larry Hamm, chairman of the
People’s Organization for Progress in Newark, New Jersey.
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