@article{1480187,
      recid = {1480187},
      author = {Watts, Jerry, },
      title = {Amiri Baraka : The Politics and Art of a Black  Intellectual /},
      pages = {1 online resource},
      abstract = {Amiri Baraka, formerly known as LeRoi Jones, became known  as one of the most militant, anti-white black nationalists  of the 1960s Black Power movement. An advocate of Black  Cultural Nationalism, Baraka supported the rejection of all  things white and western. He helped found and direct the  influential Black Arts movement which sought to move black  writers away from western aesthetic sensibilities and  toward a more complete embrace of the black world. Except  perhaps for James Baldwin, no single figure has had more of  an impact on black intellectual and artistic life during  the last forty years. In this groundbreaking and  comprehensive study, the first to interweave Baraka's art  and political activities, Jerry Watts takes us from his  early immersion in the New York scene through the most  dynamic period in the life and work of this controversial  figure. Watts situates Baraka within the various worlds  through which he travelled including Beat Bohemia,  Marxist-Leninism, and Black Nationalism. In the process, he  convincingly demonstrates how the 25 years between Baraka's  emergence in 1960 and his continued influence in the  mid-1980s can also be read as a general commentary on the  condition of black intellectuals during the same time.  Continually using Baraka as the focal point for a broader  analysis, Watts illustrates the link between Baraka's life  and the lives of other black writers trying to realize  their artistic ambitions, and contrasts him with other key  political intellectuals of the time. In a chapter sure to  prove controversial, Watts links Baraka's famous misogyny  to an attempt to bury his own homosexual past. A work of  extraordinary breadth, Amira Baraka is a powerful portrait  of one man's lifework and the pivotal time it represents in  African-American history. Informed by a wealth of original  research, it fills a crucial gap in the lively literature  on black thought and history and will continue to be a  touchstone work for some time to come.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1480187},
}