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Books by Amiri Baraka
Tales of the Out &
the Gone
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The Essence of Reparations /
Somebody Blew Up
America & Other Poems
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Blues People
Autobiography
of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka /
Selected Poetry of
Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones
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Black Music
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Books by
Ras Baraka
Black Girls Learn Lover Hard /
In the Tradition: An Anthology of Young Black Writers
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A Plea from
Amiri Baraka
Ras
Baraka Must Be Reelected
in
the June 13 Run-Off Election
By waiting till day last to tell the
world he was leaving the battlefield, Sharpe James left
a lot of people hanging. Some people say that it was the
Bush Feds who told Sharpe that if he ran they would run
him in, for whatever. Others say it had to do with the
sudden firing of Black police director Rankin, and
replacing him with Ambrose, from the family that owns
the infamous C&J Towing Company.
The fact that the courts recently
ordered James to pay Rankin around 400,000 for damages
seems to make the last claim close. The courts have also
ordered the Newark City Council to stop “the fire sale”
as the New York Times calls selling off Newark Land for
about 4$ an acre. The Times also said that if the City
Council had followed Ras Baraka’s earlier proposed
resolution for a Moratorium on the operation they could
not be accused of impropriety. But, so be it!
Anyway, now Corey Booker has won the
May 9 election and brought in three of his “team”. The
Booker T’s, if you will. And that’s not an empty phrase.
Booker is looking to sweep the entire city with his
Booker T. But in most of the races there is a June 13,
06 Run-Off Election.
Ras Baraka finished 3rd among 12
Council At Large Candidates. Now there are only 8. Since
none of the candidates got 50% plus l of the total
votes a state law aimed at eliminating young and
progressive candidates calls for a run off.
Ras Baraka represents the only really
grass roots candidate left standing. For 12 years he has
“labored in the vineyards” of Newark politics, the last
four as Deputy Mayor as well as Vice Principal of
Weequahic High School, the largest in Newark. He also
affected a truce between sets of the Bloods and Crips
youth organizations and was voted the Urban League “Man
of the Year” in 2004.
The recent scam in which the Star
Liar (Ledger) claims that Booker has been threatened
with assassination (by the Bloods) is a double dose of
poison to come. First it shows what Booker intends for
our youth. It seems obvious that Booker’s pr people have
conjured up this phoney threat to create a sensation
throughout the city (and on the same day his new Booker
T literature reached Newark Citizens)! This is a way of
re-hyping his Booker T’s and drawing sympathy from the
ingenuous!
Even worse, as one observer pointed out, it now
prepares his “Newark Citizens must be safe” anti crime
campaign placing the blame on the heads of Newark’s
youth. Remember Corey Booker is a man who says he
admires Rudy Giuliani and now NYC’s Mayor Bloomberg.
THESE ARE SOME OF THE REASONS THAT IT IS ABSOLUTELY
CRITICAL THAT RAS BARAKA WIN RE-ELECTION IN THE JUNE 13
RUN-OFF ELECTION.
RAS NEEDS MONEY AND HE NEEDS ELECTION DAY VOLUNTEERS.
CALL 973 623-9009 or send Checks to
COMMITTEE TO ELECT RAS BARAKA / BOX 1207 NEWARK ,NJ ,
07101
Amiri Baraka
6/8/06
Amirib@aol.com
posted 8 June 2006
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Ras Baraka Bio
Growing up in Newark, NJ, Baraka says,
"What I write about I have witnessed. I always knew Black
Girls loved hard because they are triply oppressed because of
their gender, their nationality, and their class." As the
son of revered poet-activists Amina and Imamu Amiri Baraka,
activism and art have always been synonymous. "Poetry and
art is culture," says Baraka. "Art is activism. There
is no division for me with art and politics."
A graduate of Howard University, Baraka
received his degree in political science and history in 1991.
While a student he formed Black Nia F.O.R.C.E. (Freedom
Organization for Racial and Cultural Enlightenment) - a student
group at the forefront of campus political and social activism.
Baraka served as Assistant Youth Coordinator for the Commission
for Racial Justice, and traveled with G.E.T.B.U.S.Y. —a tour
of rappers and political activists who lectured at jails and
schools around the country.
In his junior year, Baraka successfully led
the 1989 historic student protest to remove Lee Atwater,
Chairman of the Republican National Committee, from the
university’s Board of Trustees. The following year, Baraka was
elected as Vice President of the Howard University Student
Government.
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Baraka ran for Newark's Mayoral position in 1994, garnering nine
percent of the vote—a significant task for the then 24 year old. In 1998, he
ran for Newark Councilman-at-Large and won the general election, but missed
in the run off election. In 2002, once again he ran for Councilman-at-Large
impressingly marshalling over 13,000 votes but again missing in the run-off.
His political leverage did not go unnoticed. On September 27, 2002, Ras was
sworn in to serve as Deputy Mayor for Newark Mayor, The Honorable Sharpe
James until October 31, 2005. On, November 2, Ras was voted by Newark’s
Municipal Council to serve out the remaining Councilman-at-large seat
vacated by the death of Councilman Donald K. Tucker.
photo left: Ras Baraka and
Barack Obama |
It is no surprise this vice principal of Weequahic High
School in Newark has been such an active participant in the politics and
culture of his native New Jersey.
As an artist, Baraka independently released his debut spoken word
CD, Shorty for Mayor, with the acclaimed single "Hot
Beverage in the Winter" featuring Grammy award winning
artist Lauryn Hill. Baraka also edited
In the Tradition with
Kevin Powell, and anthology of young Black poets and writers
(1991). He recently appeared on Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry on
HBO, and is currently working on his second book of essays and
poem.
more on RasBaraka
How Ras Baraka Beat Oscar S. James II for [South Ward
Councilman]—Wednesday, May 12, 2010—James was
defeated by Ras Baraka, the man that James replaced four years ago.
New Jersey
posted 3 March 2006
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City of Newark 2010
Inauguration—Part 7—Ras Baraka Speech
On Thursday, July 1,
2010, the City of Newark inaugurated the Mayor and Municipal Council to new
four-year terms.
"American Poem" Ras
Baraka (Def Poetry) /
Lauryn Hill and Ras
Baraka—Hot Beverage In Winter
Books by Amiri Baraka
Tales of the Out & the Gone
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Somebody Blew Up America &
Other Poems /
The Essence of Reparations
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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Salvage the Bones
A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.— WashingtonPost
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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