The American Century: Literature since 1945 6451965, to become of critical importance in the development of the Black Arts
movement. And, following its demise, Baraka set up the Spirit House in Newark,
with its troupe of actors called the Spirit House Movers. On the level of theory, in
turn, it was Baraka above all who formulated, and gave definitive expression to, the
idea of a Black Aesthetic. “I think of the artist as a moralist,” Baraka declared in his
preface to Black Magic, “demanding a cleaner vision of the world.” “We are spiritual,”
he went on, “... we must see ourselves again, as black men, as the strength of the
planet, and rise to rebuild ... what is actually good.” Even the rage that has charac-
terized so much of his work has been defended by him in terms of his moralist/
nationalist aesthetics. “What I’m after is a sense of clarity,” he claimed in Black Music
(1967), “if it sounds like anger, maybe that’s good in a sense.”
Anger has not been Baraka’s only mode, even in the more purely nationalist
writing of the 1960s and 1970s. His work is also punctuated by cries for help (“calling
all black people come in, black people, come on / in”) and friendly persuasion
(“I want you to understand the world / as I have come to understand it”); above all,
by respect for the energy of black people – something that he has identified with
the ultimate agent of creativity (“God ... is energy”) and as an instrument of change,
to be mobilized by force if necessary. “We are beautiful people with african
imaginations / full of masks and dances and swelling chants,” Baraka declares in
“Ka’ Ba,” “ / with african eyes, and noses, and arms / though we sprawl in gray chains
in a place / full of winters, when what we want is sun.” There is pride here and faith
in collective identity, the belief that black people “are all beautiful.” Seeking to
harness the “ancient images” and “magic” of the African inheritance to his cause,
Baraka couples this with the verve he finds in all black cultural forms, from the
speeches of Malcolm X to the music of Muddy Waters. “What will be / the sacred
words?” he asks. His aim, which he still sees himself as sharing with other black
writers, is to unravel a new language and rhythm, “sacred words” that will liberate
him, his work, and in the process the hearts and minds of all his “black family.”
“We have been captured, / brothers,” he proclaims, “And we labor / to make our
getaway.” A new song that will generate a new self and, eventually, a new society: it is
an ambition at least as old as Leaves of Grass, but it has been rendered almost
unrecognizable. For this is a song in the service of, if necessary, violent revolution:
the revolt not only of Baraka’s “black family” – although they matter to him,
especially – but of all those similarly oppressed. In the service of that aim, as his
post-9/11 collection of poems Somebody Blew Up America (2001) shows, he is still
willing to court controversy and provoke virulent attacks from the white mainstream.
The Black Arts movement was, in particular, a movement that inspired poets, and
among those poets who received inspiration from it, and sometimes also from Amiri
Baraka, were Mari Evans (1927–), Sonia Sanchez (1934–), Nikki Giovanni (1943–),
Don L. Lee/Haki R. Madhubuti (1942–), and David Nelson (1944–). These writers
have shared with Baraka the belief that, as Sonia Sanchez puts it in “Right on: white
america” (1969), “this country might have / been a pion / eer land once, / and it still
is.” By way of explanation, Sanchez then adds pointedly: “check out / the falling gun /
shells / on our blk / tomorrow.” In other words, they have rejected the white AmericanGGray_c05.indd 645ray_c 05 .indd 645 8 8/1/2011 7:31:36 PM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 31 : 36 PM