Baraka, (Imamu) Amiri (1934– )

US poet, dramatist, and militant activist. One of the leading black voices of his generation, he promoted black poetry and theatre, as well as producing volumes of poetry, novels, plays, and cultural analyses, including Blues People (1963), a study of jazz. He began his literary career with personal and romantic poetry, as in Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note (1961), before turning to the theatre as a revolutionary force for black separatism in such plays as Dutchman and The Slave (both 1964).

In 1965 he converted to Islam and changed his name, as part of his campaign for African-American consciousness. His ideological focus shifted in the 1970s, attacking capitalism as much as racism. His Selected Plays and Prose and Selected Poetry were both published in 1979, and The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones in 1984.