Amiri Baraka

Juan Zuluaga
LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka
Poem: I can pray all day and God won’tcome. But if I call 911 the Devil be here in a minute!
Hello my name is Amiri Baraka I am a playwright, author, poet, activist, critic and educator and this is my story, I was born LeRoi Jones in Newark, New Jersey in October 7, 1934 son of Colt LeRoi Jones, a postal supervisor, and Anna Lois Jones, a social worker. We were the “average” middle class family. When I was young all I ever dreamed of was becoming a minister because at that time they were the most respected leaders of the black community. I graduated from high school in 1950 at the age of 15, and moved n to attending the Newark campus of Rutgers University on a science scholarship. Then transferred to Howard University where I received a B.A. degree in English in 1954. "Howard University shocked me into realizing how desperately sick the Negro could be, how he could be led into self-destruction and how he would not realize that it was the society that had forced him into a great sickness." When I left Howard I went to go serve in the Air Command of the U.S. Air Force from 1954 till 1957. After I left the Air Force I married a young Jewish intellectual named Hetti Roberta Cohen. She was the co-founder of a magazine called Yugen. I helped editing the magazine from1958 till 1963, and during this time I also gained recognition as a music critic doing articles on jazz and the blues that appeared in well established magazines. In 1965 I was separated and later divorced from my wife. I left Greenwich Village for Harlem. I married a black woman in 1967. This move and marriage represented both physical and psychological journey that account for the changes in his literary work as well as my social and political activities. It was during this time when I changed my name from LeRoi Jones to Imamu Amiri Baraka meaning "spiritual leader" "blessed" "prince" and my wife, Sylvia Robinson, adopted the traditional African name of Bibi...