Leroi Jones, who took the Muslim name Amiri Baraka, was one of the most influential of the Beat poets and playwrights. By the mid-sixties, he was promoting separatist ideals and no longer felt he could associate with whites, including his former wife, Hettie, and their children. His writings of this period reflected a militant's perspective and called for a complete separation of the races. Some of the essays in this book include, "Black is a Country," "What does Non-violence Mean," and "The Legacy of Malcolm X and the Coming of the Black Nation." By the early seventies, Jones began to see intolerance and racism in the advocacy of separatism, and his work changed to reflect a new perspective that attempted to unify all races.
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