Amiri Baraka was born Everett LeRoy Jones on October 7, 1934 in Newark, New Jersey. He went to Rutgers University in Newark and then transferred to Howard University, where he earned a BA in English. While in college, he changed his name for the first time to LeRoi Jones. After college, he joined the Air Force and was dishonorably discharged after he was discovered reading communist texts.
After the Air Force, he moved to Greenwich Village in New York City. Being in Greenwich Village during the 1950s and 1960s offered Baraka the chance to be part of the intensely rich avant-garde literary scene that was flourishing there. Baraka became involved with three different poetic schools: The...
