Jones, Leroi
Jones, Leroi( 1934–),New Jersey-born militant black author, reared in a middle-class environment, attended Rutgers and Howard University (B.A., 1954), served in the Strategic Air Command (1954–57), and studied philosophy and German literature respectively at Columbia and The New School for Social Research before becoming a revolutionary spokesman for his people. He turned his back on Greenwich Village, on the personal and romantic expression that marked his first poetry, Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note (1961), divorced his white wife, took the name Imamu Amiri Baraka (1965) as part of his commitment to Afro-Americanism, and founded a black community center, Spirit House, in Newark. An intense black nationalist, he lashes out at whites in his violent one-act plays, Dutchman, The Slave, and The Toilet (1964). His bitterness and frustration are also evident in his episodic novel The System of Dante's Hell...
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