In the African-American community, some compare Baraka to James Baldwin and recognize him as one of the most respected and most widely published Black writers of his generation,[8][9] though some have said his work is an expression of violence, misogyny, and homophobia.

", which resulted in accusations of antisemitism and negative attention from critics and politicians over his assertion that the US and Israeli governments had advanced knowledge of the September 11 attacks.

That's the music you wanted playing when you was coming into a joint, or just looking up at the sky with your baby by your side, that mixture of America and them changes, them blue African magic chants."

[17] While he was stationed in Puerto Rico, he worked at the base library, which allowed him ample reading time, and it was here that, inspired by Beat poets back in the mainland US, he began to write poetry.

[18][19] In cooperation with Corinth, Totem published books by LeRoi Jones and Diane di Prima, Ron Loewinsohn, Michael McClure, Charles Olson, Paul Blackburn, Frank O'Hara, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Ed Dorn, Joel Oppenheimer and Gilbert Sorrentino and an anthology of four young female poets, Carol Berge, Barbara Moraff, Rochelle Owens, and Diane Wakoski.

[21] In the autumn of 1961 he co-founded the New York Poets Theatre with di Prima, the choreographers Fred Herko and James Waring, and the actor Alan S. Marlowe.

[22] There he encountered openly rebellious artists who declared him to be a "cowardly bourgeois individualist"[23] more focused on building his reputation than trying to help those who were enduring oppression.

[24] Baraka also was a member of the Umbra Poets Workshop of emerging Black Nationalist writers (Ishmael Reed and Lorenzo Thomas, among others) on the Lower East Side (1962–65).

The reason for this misunderstanding and for the lack of black literature of merit was, according to Jones: In most cases the Negroes who found themselves in a position to pursue some art, especially the art of literature, have been members of the Negro middle class, a group that has always gone out of its way to cultivate any mediocrity, as long as that mediocrity was guaranteed to prove to America, and recently to the world at large, that they were not really who they were, i.e., Negroes.As long as black writers were obsessed with being an accepted middle class, Baraka wrote, they would never be able to speak their mind, and that would always lead to failure.

"[29] Baraka (under the name LeRoi Jones) wrote an acclaimed, controversial play titled Dutchman, in which a white woman accosts a black man on the New York City Subway.

[39] In April 1965, Baraka's "A Poem for Black Hearts" was published as a direct response to Malcolm X's assassination, and it further exemplifies the poet's uses of poetry to generate anger and endorse rage against oppression.

[42] The poem is directed particularly at black men, and it scoldingly labels them "faggots" in order to challenge them to act and continue the fallen activist's fight against the white establishment.

His poem "Black People", published in the Evergreen Review in December 1967, was read by the judge in court,[46] including the phrase: "All the stores will open if you say the magic words.

Around this time he also formed a record label called Jihad, which produced and issued only three LPs, all released in 1968:[50] Sonny's Time Now with Sunny Murray, Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Lewis Worrell, Henry Grimes, and Baraka; A Black Mass, featuring Sun Ra; and Black & Beautiful – Soul & Madness by the Spirit House Movers, on which Baraka reads his poetry.

Historian Melani McAlister points to an example of this writing: "In the case of Baraka, and in many of the pronouncements of the NOI [Nation of Islam], there is a profound difference, both qualitative and quantitative, in the ways that white ethnicities were targeted.

'"[53] Prior to this time, Baraka prided himself on being a forceful advocate of Black cultural nationalism; however, by the mid-1970s, he began finding its racial individuality confining.

[44] In 1979, he became a lecturer in the State University of New York at Stony Brook's Africana Studies Department in the College of Arts and Sciences at the behest of faculty member Leslie Owens.

These articles included a page-one exposé of his positions in the inaugural issue of Stony Brook Press on October 25, 1979, discussing his protests "against what he perceived as racism in the Africana Studies Department, as evidenced by a dearth of tenured professors".

Different accounts emerged around the arrest, yet all sides agreed that Baraka and his wife, Amina, were in their car arguing over the cost of their children's shoes.

[55] Amina Baraka continued to advocate for her husband and at one press conference stated, "Fascism is coming and soon the secret police will shoot our children down in the streets.

"[56] In December 1981 Judge Benrard Fried ruled against Baraka and ordered him to report to Rikers Island to serve his sentence on weekends occurring between January 9, 1982, and November 6, 1982.

Baraka would go on to collectively liken the committee to an "Ivy League Goebbels" while also characterizing the senior faculty as "powerful Klansmen", leading to a condemnation from department chair Barry Qualls.

[62] Baraka held the post for a year, during which time he was mired in controversy, including substantial political pressure and public outrage demanding his resignation.

[67] A New Jersey jury found Coleman (also known as Ibn El-Amin Pasha) guilty of murdering Shani Baraka and Rayshon Holmes, and he was sentenced to 168 years in prison for the 2003 shooting.

Amiri Baraka died on January 9, 2014, at Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey, after being hospitalized in the facility's intensive care unit for one month before his death.

[10][59]In the 1967 poem "The Black Man is Making New Gods", Baraka accused Jews of having stolen knowledge of Africa, transporting it to Europe, where they became white and claimed it as their own.

[75] His 1972 essay collection "Raise, Race, Rays, Raze" refers to people as "jew-slick", "jeworiented revolutionaries", and also "cohen edited negro history".

The poem is highly critical of racism in America, and includes humorous depictions of public figures such as Trent Lott, Clarence Thomas, and Condoleezza Rice.

[90] After the poem's publication, then-governor Jim McGreevey tried to remove Baraka from the post of Poet Laureate of New Jersey, to which he had been appointed following Gerald Stern in July 2002.

[95] A short excerpt from Amiri Baraka's poetry was selected to be used for a permanent installation by artist Larry Kirkland in New York City's Pennsylvania Station.