Amiri Baraka , also called Imamu Amiri Baraka, original name Everett Leroy Jones, called Leroy Jones, Leroy later changed to LeRoi (born October 7, 1934, Newark, New Jersey, U.S.—died January 9, 2014, Newark), American poet and playwright who published provocative works that assiduously presented the experiences and suppressed anger of black Americans in a white-dominated society.
After graduating from Howard University (B.A., 1953), Jones served in the U.S. Air Force but was dishonourably discharged after three years because he was suspected (wrongly at that time) of having communist affiliations. He attended graduate school at Columbia University, New York City, and founded (1958) the poetry magazine Yugen, which published the work of Beat writers such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac; he edited the publication with his wife, Hettie Cohen. He began writing under the name LeRoi Jones in the late 1950s and produced his first major collection of poetry, Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, in 1961. His first significant play, Dutchman (1964; film 1967), which recounted an explosive confrontation on a train between a black intellectual and a white woman who murders him, won the 1964 Obie Award for best Off-Broadway American play.
Following the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, Jones became increasingly focused on black nationalism, That year he left his white Jewish wife and moved to Harlem. There he founded the Black Arts Repertory Theatre, which staged many of his works prior to its closure in the late 1960s. In 1968 he adopted the name Amiri Baraka, and his writings became more divisive, prompting some to applaud his courage and others to deplore sentiments that could foster hate. In the mid-1970s he became a Marxist, though his goals remained similar. “I [still] see art as a weapon and a weapon of revolution,” he said. “It’s just now that I define revolution in Marxist terms.
On this day in:
1793 New York City's daily newspaper, 'The American Minerva' was established.
1814 Joseph Bramah died. An English engineer, among his many inventions was a beer engine, used to deliver beer from keg to glass without artificial carbonation being added.
1868 Fritz Haber was born (died Jan 29, 1934). German chemist, he developed a method of synthesizing ammonia directly from nitrogen and hydrogen (1909). This led to large-scale commercial production of nitrogen fertilizer.
1886 Clarence Birdseye was born in Brooklyn, New York. In 1924, Clarence Birdseye, with the financial backing of Wetmore Hodges, William Gamage, Basset Jones, I.L. Rice and J.J. Barry, organized the General Seafood Corporation. The birth of the frozen food industry.
1907 Christmas seals go on sale for the first time. The proceeds went to fight tuberculosis.
1927 'Struttin' With Some Barbecue' was recorded by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five.
1935 Lafayette Benedict Mendel died. An American biochemist who published various papers on nutrition. His work on vitamins and proteins helped establish modern standards of nutrition.
1965 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' premiered on CBS TV.
1967 The Cunard lines 1,000 ft, 81,000 ton passenger ship the Queen Mary, launched in 1936, arrived in Long Beach, California to begin its new roll as a museum, hotel and conference center.
1983 White House Counselor (later Attorney General) Edwin Messe says: "I don't know of any authoritative figures that there are hungry children.....We've had considerable evidence that people go to soup kitchens because the food is free and that's easier than paying for it."
1993 On the TV show 'Seinfield,' Kramer came up with the idea to write a coffee table book about coffee tables.
1997 Karl August Folkers died. He was the first to isolate vitamin B12.
2020 Due to the pandemic, the National Restaurant Association estimates that 17% of America’s restaurants have permanently closed so far this year. 110,000 restaurants have already permanently shuttered in 2020, with 10,000 of them closed in the past three months.
Death of poet Countee Cullen
Death of poet Countee Cullen (42), New York City.
Holland, Jerome Heartwell (1916-1985) - Birthday
Educator, diplomat and businessman, Jerome Heartwell Holland was born on January 9, 1916 in Auburn, New York.