Amiri Baraka x Darnell Lamont Walker

In 2006, I had the incredible opportunity to interview Amiri Baraka for the University of Virginia’s Pride Magazine. Back then, Pride Magazine was the go-to for African, African American, and Caribbean student interests at UVA. As a young poet and playwright, I was filled with excitement and anticipation when Pride’s Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Stephanie Henderson asked if I could meet with the man whose work I had studied and deeply admired. A year prior, I delivered Clay’s infamous monologue from Dutchman at Bethune-Cookman University.

Baraka’s prolific career spanned poetry, drama, fiction, and essays, and he was known for his uncompromising exploration of race, politics, and culture in America. Baraka’s contributions to literature and activism continue to inspire and provoke thought, making my conversation with him a timeless exchange of ideas and insights.

Here are the unedited transcripts of that interview. Disclaimer: young me said “wow” too often.

Interview with Amiri Baraka on September 12, 2006, 4pm. At the Luther P. Jackson Cultural Center on the campus of the University of Virginia at the Office of African American Affairs.

Darnell: Like I said, my name is Darnell Walker with PRIDE Magazine here at the University of Virginia. I’m actually a member. First question come from Dubois when he asks “How does it feel to be a problem?” and that’s the question that I have for you.

Baraka: See that’s the heaviest question, my great hero, you know (indistinguishable) wrote ten thousand essays, but that’s a heavy question ’cause if you think about it, it goes to the roots of your own consciousness, ’cause if you don’t know that you’re a quote problem unquote, but at the same time you do know why you are considered a problem, then the question is what do you do about that. In the first case, if you don’t know, that’s where you should start, by educating. Second case, if you do know and you know why that is, then the question is unity and struggle as it always has been.

Darnell: Ok, you said unity…

Baraka: Of the people who are considered problems. One thing about globalization, so called, is that its made most of the world a problem in the same way, because its trying to make a world full of “niggas” and people aint going for it apparently

Darnell: Doesn’t seem to be working huh? (Laughter)

Baraka: No it aint working. It aint working. But that, that book, you know, uh, the Souls of Black Folk, that’s a very profound and innovative text, and beginning with that question, you see which is supposed to then open you to the whole question of what Dubois said, creating a true self conscious. You know, are you standing there being a problem and don’t know it?

Darnell: Right

Baraka: ’Cause I know being a problem is giving you a lot of problems and see so you have to find out how to resolve the problem you have by finding out why you’re a problem in the first place. And that book itself, which (indistinguishable) he wrote five times, can really be said to be kind of uh, if not the ignition of, at least, part of a kind of fuel for the Harlem Renaissance. You know every chapter in there raises the question of, you know, spiritual striving, and the question of you know developing the consciousness; you know what he called true self consciousness. How you get here? Where you at? I mean mentally, psychologically, physically, socially. How did u get to this spot. So that Souls of Black Folks, I think you can read any number of texts coming out of the Harlem Renaissance and you hear that same question coming through that. The whole development of that Harlem Renaissance which encouraged in the 60’s the black arts movement (indistinguishable) that now we’re in need of again, What Dubois called the synthesis syndrome? You roll a rock up a hill then roll it back down again. So that was the Harlem Renaissance was to roll it up after the Civil War you know And then you know Re-construction rolled it down, then the Harlem Rena was a rolling up, and then Fascism appeared in the world and in America and rolled it down. And then in the late 50’s, 60’s the Civil Rights movement, Right liberation movement, rolling up, they rolled it back down. This time based on the very advancements that we made, it’s ironic. What the Civil Rights movement did was allow a whole sector of our people to then get into a position where they have to be the breaks on our own progress. …who actually become the breaks, to lead you back into what King and Malcolm called a burning building. Being a problem takes on different dimensions in each generation. And that generation has to either understand what its mission is, or fail. That’s the question. You have to understand first what your mission is, what you got to do. Like my generation the question was the black, white you know, the whole overt segregation, discrimination, you know that whole straight out legacy of slavery. This generation, your generation is more complex ’cause its not straight out anymore like that. You gone have to deal with straight out class struggle. Negroes gone have a lot of power and its gone be power related to fame and constant periods of racism. So I’d say about that, you know, and that question, you know I can speak on it because I use that a lot of times as the beginning of a whole lecture. I mean that’s how profound that is, I mean I use the probability problem and touching on this double consciousness, you know synthesis syndrome. It was all Dubois’ concepts. And those are concepts which we still have to gravel with. The question of education goes back to that. If our people don’t understand what he’s talking about, then they don’t understand their situation. They don’t understand what a double consciousness is and the difference in that says is that if you understand what the double consciousness is then that makes out two weapons. ’Cause you struggling not only from self-determination but you struggle from democracy. So you have to do both of those things and if you do only one. You understand if you think, for instance, you only struggle for democracy in America to be an American, then you have to stand in line and wait for them to decide, just for you to do that. You gone have to have some determination ’cause for you to make that other thing you gone have to spur that. You gone have to beat that into moving you understand, you can’t just wait like an All American for progress. “Cause progress for you is gone be after whatever, when it comes unless you have some taken some kind of aggressive self-determined path, which cannot wait for the African American ’cause the African American knows its place.

Now Dubois, that’s very interesting, ’cause to me his is the most profound of our leaders historically, not only as a political thinker, great writer, an activist all those things and to combine the contention of aesthetics and art, that’s very very important. If I were making up a curriculum that would be one important aspect of it. You would have to teach Dubois. You would have to know about him. You couldn’t call yourself an intellectual and you didn’t read Dubois. And not only Souls of Black Folk, but Black Reconstruction, you have to know that. You have to study that.

Baraka: As a matter of fact, I’ll probably speak on that, say something about that because that’s what makes a healthy study circle. That read, Black Reconstruction, take your ear to read it, you know once a week, come together and discuss it. But the education about this country that comes out that is so awesome, that’s a great scientific order. It’s not just an opinion. It’s based on him as a social scientist, a historian, you know, those are measured opinions. They’re not emotional opinions.

Darnell: I heard you using the synthesis syndrome, I remember in 2002, the year you stated that you were writing an opera about the synthesis syndrome. Were you serious about that work?

Baraka: Well we performed it at the Chamberge

Darnell: O, wow!

Baraka: Yea, we did perform it. Uh, the question always is about (indistinguishable) You have to, eventually you gone have to develop your own circuit, your own tour, again. Because you say “I wanna be segregated” NO! Because we are excluded. The thing you have to realize is that an American theatre itself is segregated into what’s commercial garbage that’s always out there. You know that the United States is the only industrial country, you know, when you talk about industrial Europe that has no national theatre. You can go to England and see you know regular repertory Shakespeare anytime you want to. It wont be the same place as the theatre, it’s gone the be Shakespeare Cycle. You go to France, and see Comedy Francais. You could see Monniere, Conniere, you could see, you know what I’m saying. Or you could even go to Italy, or Yugoslavia even and see a national theatre, but not in the United States. There readily is a conglomeration of commercialism ’cause that (indistinguishable) are so important. ’Cause that is a teaching instrument that connects us.

Darnell: Actually a couple of years ago I took a notice in you when you were talking about collecting poets and artists and putting them on a bus and doing a tour ??? We actually did that, a group started at Bethune Cookman, we actually did that, we collected poets from all over Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville. We got on a bus and headed ??? We stopped in Atlanta then came back down south, but you know…

Baraka: That’s a great idea.

Darnell: We called it Elevation. And Elevation took…

Baraka: What was it called?

Darnell: Elevation. We did the Elevation Tour, all the HBCU’s around there…

Baraka: That was a brilliant idea. No because all these campuses, I know there are black student organizations, I know you could get that up through there. They ought to be told ??? I’ll tell you one interesting thing, me and my wife, we went down to Grenada, you know the southern part where the signs turned Spanish into Arabic. Going south of Spian, you start seeing Arabic. And Yorka had a theatre group that used to travel around like that on a bus, and the name of the theatre group was called Baraka. I didn’t know that ’til I went there, but the name means blessing. But, uh, that’s a great idea. But that’s still, You find each time you make a political move, there is a kind of artistic renaissance that goes with that because part of the thrust and that’s part of the education of the people that continues you know, to fuel the notion.

Darnell: Right.

Baraka: And we did like three performances and stopped and done again.

Darnell: Wow. And then that’s the opera (indistinguishable)

Baraka: Yea, you know. I mean you know it took us a month to get it together for three performances. When actually something like that should be… We live in 27 cities, you know, population I’d say 40–50 million people, with a gross national product of close to 600 billion dollars a year, the 16th largest in the world. That’s the incredible thing, Black Americans, the 16th largest gross national product in the world. The 15th is what? General Motors, although they seem like they losing steam. The point is with all that money and all them people, you could go to the U.N. Most of them nations don’t have no pull. Incredible, that lack of consciousness, if you, I mean African Americans got more money than India, than Argentina. You know what I’m saying? Well the Indians got an atomic bomb, have a theatre circus. And we don’t even have a national newspaper. You understand what I mean? Not to have a national newspaper. We got 130 locals and not one national newspaper. So that means we cant even think in common. We don’t even know what’s happening. That’s the situation, so, that’s why today make sure you go off and differential. Because any kind of national presence of African Americans influences this country itself, not just us. You know, like Malcolm say “Yo, whenever you got 250 million then you got 50 million who hold the power of the ballot”, if they would think like that, and we don’t think like that.

Darnell: We need to raise their consciousness?

Baraka: Yea, raise the consciousness of these people. You know, Bush would’ve never gotten two elections like that. If you had 40, 50 million Afro-American represented by a national organization, on the real side, I’m not talking about NAACP. I’m talking about an organization that we elect. A congress. Not because we want to be separate but because we in this! And we gotta have some power, some presence in it. I mean Jesse [Jackson] went out on the streets down in Miami trying to get a change; you know the whole, win that Miami, that Florida election. Gore pulled him back.

Darnell: I wanted to touch on the black arts movement. In 1964 when the Dutchmen presented, did you have any idea that these two characters that you created contributed so much to the growth of the black arts movement?

Baraka: Well, remember that period is that period, I just spoke to rally the SNCC civil association about that. Remember that period itself, was turbulent. You know you’d have…what happened in the 60‘s is a result of 20years of turbulence. I mean you could even look at the independence of India, China in the late 40’s which is why then we have the whole McCarthy’s period. But then we break out of that with what? The Civil Rights Movement, 1954, Brown vs. Board of Education. You know, ’57 you got King, who went down there in Montgomery with the bus boycott, Rosa Parks, and Robert Williams; taking the hood off of the Klan down in North Carolina, you understand? It’s the whole thing you see? So, Dutchmen is actually my reflections of that kind of rage that rise in consciousness. You know, that’s what that is. If you read (indistinguishable) and stuff in the 20’s in the Harlem Renaissance, it reflects that, political and artistic turbulence. And so there are sensitive artist that they are checking out what their people are doing. You know what I’m saying? And that’s what that is, you know? Those opinions have been taught to me by that whole period. By 1960, the first time you seen Malcolm X on television, you know? That’s also the beginning of SNCC, 1960. February 1st. So by the time Dutchman came out in 1964, I had already been to Cuba, in 1960. Right, ’cause Fidel came into power in 59. I went to Cuba, I took Langston’s place ’cause he couldn’t go. It was a significant place. I met Robin Williams down in Cuba, and met Fidel Castro. You see, so that period has boomed, all I’m doing actually is channeling what’s happening. And even the actors Al Freeman, who starred in the Dutchmen, said that “When I read that, I understood there was something new happening. That I could now say some stuff or let my feelings come out.” This is the actor saying “I can let my feelings come out,” straight ahead. As far as some diverted, or some kind of artist’s, or somebody else’s feeling about the world. I could identify with that. So I can like, you know, chew the scenery up with of course (indistinguishable). And that was the feeling, that was the black ultimate, when we finally understood that we had a weapon. As artists we had a weapon to just try to capture the attention of rich folks and bourgeois that we had a weapon. We had something that we could use. You know, and that’s what that was, especially when they killed Malcolm. Those of us who were downtown felt guilty that why weren’t we up there with Malcolm; that maybe we could’ve done something, God knows. But that was the feeling that we had as artists, as black artists that we had to work under the struggle with. And we were Malcolm’s children and he wanted to use our art.

Darnell: How do we bring that back? I know you said that there needs to be something taking place now, with the black artist. How do we get that feeling back?

Baraka: Well, I mean, some people have to agitate it. You know, agitate it. But see the question is; Consciousness has to generally come back to that. And those of us who understand it, you know for instance, I know there’s a lot of stuff I should be doing, in terms of public change. You know we have a newspaper that comes out once every three months and that’s not effective. These books that I published myself, we haven’t developed proper distribution. You know, and I’m talking about big companies and stuff like that. Remember this, all of us who are in that situation have been vamped on one way or another. You know, either dead, locked up, you know, or those who have been bought, you know, and made prostitutes. And so, you know, when people say, you know, when you was the poet laureate of New Jersey. Yes, what’s the payment for saying that? You know, we aint gone hear from you no more. And if you go back do Dubois, when he was indicted at the agent of a foreign power for being against them for developing the atomic bomb and they said he was an agent of foreign power, and they put him on trial. He won and that was the first anti-McCarthy victory. And it was Dubois’ victory. And of course he had one character witness who did not have to testify. That was Albert Einstein. So the judge checked that out and said oh no, you wont be (indistinguishable) When Dubois won that case, he said, “now the little children will no longer hear my name.” you see, he was the best known black intellectual in the world. You know like if the Michael Jackson or Muhammad Ali of his time. You know he said “Now the children will no longer hear my name.” He was clear on that because after that, he was choom! (sound effect) And (indistinguishable) would not mention Dubois’ name for 17 years. They would not mention his name. You know what I’m saying? It was like, he suddenly did not exist. And that’s the problem for all the stuff that happened in the 60’s and 70’s in that period of turbulence. None of those people, even the white folks were trying to say something about that. None of them. Suddenly you look up and poetry is dull again. And suddenly I’m writing an essay on why is poetry so boring. Why? Because they want it to be. If you look Allen Ginsberg’s Howl; and people were jumping up, ahh! (sound effect) Whatever you think about that, that was not boring. See the black arts movement when people were actually aggressively attacking the system: they don’t want that. Now they have, you know, some quiet, academic stuff. Where people are talking about something happened to them personally, or their inner feelings, or the ocean, or the sun, or the cat sad in the chair, you know, stuff like that, but in terms of seeing art as a weapon to change reality. That’s the significance of it. So they have to get away from that. Especially when you got a right wing neo-fascist government like this one is.

Darnell: Well, what today then, do you consider Black art?

Baraka: Well I’d say this, that we need a revolutionary art. Black folks are gone always be in the vanguard of that ’cause they are not dividable. See, even though we have now a whole lot of crazy negroes out there, saying uh, the civil rights movement is over. The Black Liberation movement is over.” I just heard this fool standing in the crowd, talking bad about the Panthers. In the Sunday’s New York Times they, talking bad about Malcolm a few months before that, but you know that’s the kind of negroes you got out there whose job it is to do that. But the way this country is going, uh, I think that your own generation and those just ahead of you will get the news. You know I hope they get the news before the planet is destroyed, between wars everywhere and global warming, and then you know, tsunamis and Katrina and man weather ships and stuff like that. But you know it’s always up to the most sensitive in the society to understand, to see what’s going on, to rationalize what’s going on and then to explain that to the masses of people. ’Cause the great masses of the black people are not backwards. You understand what I mean, they like the ignorant in a sense of the education, but they’re not comfort corrupt, like the great majority of Americans. The question is; what should we do? And it’s always that, so, what should we do? I mean what moved this country in the 60’s?

Dr. King and Malcolm X, Black Panthers. It was black people who moved the whole country. Why? Because we knew we had to fight and that’s our history of this story. We all got Fred Douglass out there. Read what he said its still relative, right now. At this point, the great Afro-American political forces, artist that we have, their history is a great great folk history, noble history, and Fred is still contemporary with it. You know, that July fourth speech is still one of the baddest things ever to come out of the United States, you know, still. There is no man that does not understand that slavery is not right”. I mean you can’t say it no different, He say, “you might not get everything you pay for but you gone pay for everything you get.” See those things that he says, I mean those things are like universal truths. I mean even though he’s fighting as a slave. I mean when you check Fred Douglass out, say, well this man is a slave, yet he is the most profound writer of the 19th century. I mean read that language, you say well how do you get that? That desire. One thing you can say about black people in America, they will take everything from anybody. I mean they will steal everything from everybody. I mean you know, they’ll take Beethoven and Albert Eileen, and John Coltrain and Muddy waters and you know it don’t make no difference, they just want it.

Darnell: Okay, After saying that and looking back on the whole synthesis syndrome, where do you think we are right now with the boulder of, where on the hill are we?

Baraka: Well, we’re on the bottom.

Darnell: Again?

Baraka: Again. But, it’s a kind of dialect at the bottom politically. Still, we are at a more advanced place in some aspects in terms of more of our people are educated. You understand what I mean? More of our people are educated. The question is that there’s such an intense class struggle that a lot of the people who are educated are on the wrong side. That’s the class struggle. Like I said, they’ve eliminated all the voices of black rebellion you know and white attempt to transform this society, you know and its incredible. So that need to reorganize, to create that kind of popular front, in the face of this kind of right wing, neo-fascist movement. That ultimately has got to inspire. That’s got to inspire people and people have got to see that. See, these people don’t understand that the Unites States is not written in the sky. This society gone have a society like ancient Greece, ancient Rome, you know colonial England, French Empire, Spanish Empire, you know, they all gone. This one can go…that farce in Iraq, is an indication that if you can’t beat Iraq then you need to… (stops recording at 30:40)

(starts recording again at 31:44) What happened is Chainey, Goodman, and Schwerner had just been killed, and I reacted to these people trying to say, although now I see that quite differently, trying to say that because of Schwerner and Goodman’s death, that somehow that might sway the whole guilt of white American racists. But now I say this, I would rather those two white boys today, to be fighting against racism, for whatever reasons, than becoming members of the young Republicans. I’ll tell you that. You know, and that’s the difference. But that to me was just some over the top (indistinguishable).

Darnell: Finally, at the end of the day when all is said and done, do you have a lot of apologies whatsoever? Any regrets?

Baraka: I would say a lot of things that I said and done I wouldn’t think to, you know, not do. I mean if you don’t benefit by being old, aint no point in being old. (laughter) There’s a lot of things that I’ve said that I’d say today I wouldn’t try to change that, but give the context why. I don’t think what I said was phony or nothing like that I just think that it wasn’t right. You know, I shouldn’t condemn the spirit if it wants to do something. But Malcolm did that too, you know, and later he said you know “I’m sorry I did that.” But at the time you remember that’s the simplest thing. You know they beating up people in the street. You know Dr. King went to jail more than the average felon. You know, they killed Malcolm X, they killed Dr. King. They not on a vacation nowhere. They murdered them. You know what I’m saying? They murdered Medgar Evars. They blew up a church with four little girls in it; killing little girls, for praying. You understand. I went to jail in 1967, since the three years in prison and the dude quoted a poem, in the court. I mean its, you understand, I mean it was the kind of just pressure of that situation and you were striking out any way you can but nothing I would say I regret. So you wanna help? Here’s what you can do, organize them white people, in that community for one, so they aint as crazy.

Darnell: I wanna thank you so much. It was a pleasure. I promise. Oh man, wow.

Baraka: And you’re welcome.