LeRoi Jones

Until the mid-1960s, he published as LeRoi Jones; in 1965, following the assassination of Malcolm X, he changed his name to Amiri Baraka and moved to Harlem .

Throughout his career, Amiri Baraka has explored a variety of themes though his work, both personal and political in character, including race relations, Beat aesthetics, Black Nationalism, Marxism, and contemporary political events.

Baraka has founded or co-founded a number of organizations, including Yugen magazine, Totem Press, the Black Arts Repertory Theatre, and the Congress of African People. He has served as director of the Congress of African People, secretary-general of the National Black Political Assembly, and has served as New Jersey's Poet Laureate.

He has taught at such universities as Yale and George Washington, and in 1982 became a tenured professor in the African Studies Department at SUNY Stony Brook.


Recent years
In early-2007, a revival of his play Dutchman, with Dule Hill and Jennifer Mudge, was produced at the Cherry Lane Theatre, where the play had debuted on March 24, 1964 starring Robert Hooks. His poem, Somebody Blew up America was set to music in the multi-award winning film 500 Years Later in 2005.


Personal life
He was married to Hettie Jones (born Hettie Cohen) from 1958 to 1966. He has been married to Sylvia Robinson (now known as Amina Baraka) since 1967.


Controversy
In 1965, Baraka wrote: "Most American white men are trained to be fags. For this reason it is no wonder their faces are weak and blank. … The average ofay [white person] thinks of the black man as potentially raping every white lady in sight. Which is true, in the sense that the black man should want to rob the white man of everything he has. But for most whites the guilt of the robbery is the guilt of rape. That is, they know in their deepest hearts that they should be robbed, and the white woman understands that only in the rape sequence is she likely to get cleanly, viciously popped."

Amiri Baraka was New Jersey's Poet Laureate at the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks. He wrote a poem titled "Somebody Blew Up America" about the event. The poem was controversial and highly critical of the American government. The poem also contains lines implicating the Israel's involvement in an alleged 9/11 conspiracy: "Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed, Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers" "Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion, And cracking they sides at the notion"

After publishing this poem Governor Jim McGreevey tried to remove Baraka from the post, only to discover that there was no legal way to do so. So he then abolished the NJ Poet Laureate title, Baraka no longer holds the position as Poet Laureate in New Jersey.

In spite of his sometime-controversial writing, Baraka has received honors from a number of organizations, including the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Langston Hughes Award from The City College of New York, The Rockefeller Foundation Award for Drama, an induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a lifetime achievement award from the Before Columbus Foundation.

The controversy surrounding Baraka gained the attention of debate coordinator, Brian Boothe, a Purdue University graduate. Boothe, in an effort to provide a platform for Baraka's views, and to have them debated, was successful in getting Baraka on "The Sean Hannity Show", in which fireworks lit when Hannity and his guest collided. During the debate, Baraka refused to condemn any controversial race based statements he had made in the past, subsequently making Hannity conclude him as a racist, to which Baraka disagreed.