Amiri Baraka

I selected "Ka'Ba" by Amiri Baraka, written in 1969. Barak was born in 1934 and died earlier this year, and is best known for his role in the Black Arts movement.

In assessing the degree to which Baraka fit into the Black Arts movement, it's important to note that he evolved as a writer very significantly. Initially, he was a moderate civil rights advocate who became radicalized and extreme, until ultimately he abandoned the Black Power movement to instead be a Marxist (at which point he rejected racial differences). That said, the poem I selected clearly fits within his Black Power years, and is a strongly worded praise of Afrocentrism that, though it avoids the offensive language towards nonblacks/women/Jews/Arabs/Christians/LGBTQ+ people that many of Baraka's other poems contain, is nevertheless more on the Garvey side of the spectrum than the MLK side. "Our world is more lovely than anyone's," states Baraka, and "We are beautiful people." The message here is not one of equity but rather of blacks being superior to whites. This fits within the more radical strains of the Black Arts movement quite well, and though this poem is not aggressive, many of his others are. He does recognize the oppression confronting the black community: "we have been captured," and "we sprawl in gray chains," and so on, and he wants black people to "raise up/return, destroy, create."

The title of the poem, Ka'Ba, denotes Islam's holiest place, a shrine in Mecca. Amiri (prince) and Baraka (blessed) are his chosen names, drawn from Arabic, because Amiri was a black Muslim whose stances often paralleled those of the best known black Muslim group, the NOI. Baraka describes a crowded, hectic courtyard (he's from New York), with the beautiful sounds of black voices. He then ties those black voices to African culture, which he maintains, though fettered, remains vibrant. He next turns to exploring how blacks have been oppressed in America: chains (though once literal, now figurative), have kept black people from expressing and actualizing themselves. Now, he contends, is time for them to stand up, destroy their chains, and claim their righteous places. It's not exactly clear what this process entails: the word "destroy," for instance, is used--but is it the obstacles that are to be destroyed, or white culture? There is also an element of mysticism in that he claims that "spells" are needed, and that the "sacred word" must be found.