Amiri Baraka

"The poor Negro always remembered himself as an ex-slave and used this as the basis of any dealings with the mainstream of American society. The middle class black man bases his whole existence on the …"

"Art in an abstract setting is one thing, but art where you’re actually telling people to do things becomes dangerous…"

"The Black Artist's role in America is to aid in the destruction of America as he knows it. His role is to report and reflect so precisely the nature of the society, and of himself, in that society, th…"

"One of the most persistent traits of of the Western white man has always been his fanatical and almost instinctive assumption that his systems and ideas about the world are the most desirable, and fur…"

"You cannot stop struggling just because you’ve got a black guy walking around saying some stuff. Just because his skin is your color don’t mean his brain is the same as yours; if you’re going to bomb …"

"I guess I was the most unbohemian of all bohemians. My bohemianism consisted of not wanting to get involved with the stupid stuff that I thought people wanted you to get involved with — ... namely Ame…"

"So he gave me an Arab name; he gave me the name Amir Barakat. But I didn't want an Arab name ... I took the name and Swahili-ized it and Bantu-ized it, and changed it from Amir to Amiri and from Barak…"