Leroi Jones A.K.A Amiri Baraka

Notes For a Speech by LeRoi Jones

African blues

does not know me. Their steps, in sands

of their own

land. A country

in black & white, newspapers

blown down pavements

of the world. Does

not feel

what I am.

Strength

in the dream, an oblique

suckling of nerve, the wind

throws up sand, eyes

are something locked in

hate, of hate, of hate, to

walk abroad, they conduct

their deaths apart

from my own. Those

heads, I call

my "people."

(And who are they. People. To concern

myslef, ugly man. Who

you, to concern

the white flat stomachs

of maidens, inside houses

dying. Black. Peeled moon

light on my fingers

move under

her clothes. Where

is her husband. Black

words throw up sand

to eyes, fingers of

their private dead. Whose

soul, eyes, in sand. My color

is not theirs. Lighter, white man

talk. They shy away. My own

dead souls, my, so called

people. Africa

is a foreign place. You are

as any other sad man here

american.

LeRoi Jones a.k.a. Amiri Baraka, poet, playwright, activist and urban born black man. The beat movement, a literary reimagining that peaked creatively approximately forty odd years ago, was one that drew attention to several different walks of life. One being the group of inspired black youths of America, struggling