What Do I Read Next?
The play by Baraka that is published alongside Dutchman is titled The Slave. It is a fable loosely inspired by Baraka's previous marriage to a white woman, revealing the hidden racism in liberal whites. His 1969 play Slave Ship diverges from traditional American drama, adopting the pageantry of African theater. It captures the complete sensory experience of the journey to America on a slave ship.
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man delves into the hollowness of the assimilationist dream. The protagonist realizes that his black skin renders him invisible in American society and that black leaders and educators actually encourage him to reject his heritage, making himself even more unseen.
Black feminist playwright Ntozake Shange acknowledged her debt to Baraka's innovations in language and social change within the new black theater. Her 1975 play, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, highlights the struggles of black women, who face oppression from both whites and black men. This dramatic work blends dance, music, poetry, and improvisation into a new genre she names the "choreopoem."
Randall Dudley's 1969 poem "Booker T. and W. E. B." illustrates the divide between assimilationist ideologies, represented by Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois, and the more ambitious efforts to elevate the status of blacks in America.
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