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The Black Power Movement A Guide to the Microfilm Edition of BLACK STUDIES RESEARCH SOURCES Microfilms from Major Archival and Manuscript Collections General Editors: John H. Bracey, Jr. and Sharon Harley The Black Power Movement Part 1: Amiri Baraka from Black Arts to Black Radicalism Editorial Adviser Komozi Woodard Project Coordinator Randolph H. Boehm Guide compiled by Daniel Lewis A microfilm project of UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS OF AMERICA An Imprint of CIS 4520 East-West Highway • Bethesda, MD 20814-3389 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Black power movement. Part 1, Amiri Baraka from Black arts to Black radicalism [microform] / editorial adviser, Komozi Woodard; project coordinator, Randolph H. Boehm. p. cm.—(Black studies research sources) Accompanied by a printed guide, compiled by Daniel Lewis, entitled: A guide to the microfilm edition of the Black power movement. ISBN 1-55655-834-1 1. Afro-Americans—Civil rights—History—20th century—Sources. 2. Black power—United States—History—Sources. 3. Black nationalism—United States— History—20th century—Sources. 4. Baraka, Imamu Amiri, 1934– —Archives. I. Woodard, Komozi. II. Boehm, Randolph. III. Lewis, Daniel, 1972– . Guide to the microfilm edition of the Black power movement. IV. Title: Amiri Baraka from black arts to Black radicalism. V. Series. E185.615 323.1'196073'09045—dc21 00-068556 CIP Copyright © 2001 by University Publications of America. All rights reserved. ISBN 1-55655-834-1. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ............................................................................................................................. v Scope and Content Note ........................................................................................................ xi Source Note ............................................................................................................................. xix Acronyms and Abbreviations ................................................................................................ xxi Reel Index Reel 1 Series 1: Black Arts Movement ........................................................................................ 1 Series 2: Black Nationalism .............................................................................................. 3 Series 3: Correspondence ................................................................................................ 3 Series 4: NewArk (New Jersey)........................................................................................ 3 Reel 2 Series 4: NewArk (New Jersey) cont. ............................................................................... 4 Series 5: Congress of African People ............................................................................... 5 Reel 3 Series 5: Congress of African People cont. ...................................................................... 6 Series 6: National Black Conferences and National Black Assembly ............................... 8 Reel 4 Series 6: National Black Conferences and National Black Assembly cont. ...................... 8 Series 7: Black Women’s United Front ............................................................................. 9 Series 8: Student Organization for Black Unity................................................................. 9 Series 9: African Liberation Support Committee ............................................................... 9 Series 10: Revolutionary Communist League................................................................... 10 Reel 5 Series 10: Revolutionary Communist League cont. .......................................................... 10 Series 11: African Socialism ............................................................................................. 11 Series 12: Black Marxists ................................................................................................. 11 Reel 6 Series 12: Black Marxists cont. ........................................................................................ 12 Series 13: National Black United Front ............................................................................. 12 Series 14: Miscellaneous Materials, 1978–1988 .............................................................. 13 Reel 7 Series 14: Miscellaneous Materials, 1978–1988 cont....................................................... 14 Series 15: Serial Publications ........................................................................................... 15 The African World......................................................................................................... 15 Black Nation ................................................................................................................. 16 Black NewArk ............................................................................................................... 16 Unity and Struggle ........................................................................................................ 17 iii Reel 8 Series 15: Serial Publications cont. .................................................................................. 18 Unity and Struggle cont. ............................................................................................... 18 Main Trend ................................................................................................................... 19 IFCO News ................................................................................................................... 19 Series 16: Oral Histories ................................................................................................... 19 Reel 9 Series 16: Oral Histories cont. .......................................................................................... 20 Principal Correspondents Index ............................................................................................ 23 Subject Index ........................................................................................................................... 25 Title Index ................................................................................................................................53 iv INTRODUCTION As the author of over twenty plays, seven books of nonfiction, two novels, and more than a dozen volumes of poetry, Amiri Baraka is one of the most prolific and influential African American writers of the twentieth century. As a young man in the 1960s, Baraka (then known as LeRoi Jones) galvanized a second Black Renaissance, the Black Arts movement. Both individually and through the movement that he nurtured among black artists, Baraka has made an indelible contribution to modern African American culture and consciousness. Some critics and literary historians rank Baraka alongside Phyllis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, John Coltrane, Ralph Ellison, and Toni Morrison. And Maya Angelou insists that Amiri Baraka is the world’s greatest living poet. The ideological and political transformations of Amiri Baraka from a Beat poet in Greenwich Village into a militant political activist in Harlem and Newark was paradigmatic for the Black Revolt of the 1960s. The increasing radicalization of the Black Revolt and the rise of the Black Arts movement lifted LeRoi Jones from relative obscurity in the Beat circles of the Village, swept him into the center of the Black Power movement, christened him Amiri Baraka, and ultimately propelled this foremost literary figure into the ranks of national black political leadership. Indeed, Harold Cruse explains that the young intellectuals, artists, writers, poets, and musicians of the 1960s were “actually coming of age into a great intellectual, political, creative and theoretical vacuum. They would enter the arena of activity in search of leadership. One of the most outstanding of them, LeRoi Jones, learned in such a personal way as to epitomize within himself all the other things his generation learned either empirically or vicariously.”1 On October 7, 1934, Baraka was born Everett Leroy Jones during the Great Depression in Newark, New Jersey. Newark was segregated and much of his early social life was lived in the shadow of jim crow racism. He was born in a segregated hospital, Kinney Medical Center in the Central Ward of the city. Jim crow racism in Newark meant that black people could not try on clothing in the department stores and that blacks suffered segregation in restaurants and other public accommodations, including theaters. In the two- story theaters, Newark’s blacks were forced to sit in the balconies. In theaters without balconies, one side of the seating was reserved for whites. In some situations, rather than segregate space, the white owners jim crowed time, designating one evening each week for “Negro night.” v The young Baraka attended predominantly white Barringer High School and Rutgers University–Newark Campus before transferring to the historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C. There Baraka befriended classmate A. B. Spellman, the poet and author. Both Baraka and Spellman studied with Professor Sterling Brown, an accomplished poet, who introduced them to the study of jazz. Both Baraka and Spellman would write pioneering books on jazz history. It was at Howard University that Everett Leroy Jones changed his name to LeRoi Jones. Baraka dropped out of Howard University and joined the United States Air Force, where he was discharged for possession of subversive
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