Amiri Baraka, also known as I manu Amiri Baraka, was born in Newark, New Jersey on October 7, 1934 under the name of Everett Leroy Jones. He is a respected playwright, poet, novelist, and essayist who is best known for his exploration and examination of African American experiences and his “affirmation of black life.” He graduated from Howard University and then published his first work, a collection of poetry, Preface to a Twenty-Volume Suicide Note, in 1961. His plays include “Dutchman” (1964), which won critical acclaim during its off-Broadway performances. Two other plays, “The Slave” and “The Toilet”, were produced later that same year. Baraka also founded The Black Arts Repertory Theatre in Harlem in 1965. In 1968 he founded an organization known as the Black Community Development and Defense Organization, a Muslim group, he focusing on affirming black culture and aiding African-Americans in gaining political power.
Amiri Baraka is well known in the poetic world as an African American enthusiast. He has written many poems expressing his experiences as a child and an adult. The poem “.
