Imamu Amiri Baraka lecture, "Black Arts Drama," at the University of Iowa, June 7, 1973

Speaker 1: The following is an address from the 5th Annual Institute for Afro-American Culture. Recorded at The University of Iowa, June 7th, 1973. The topic for the Institute was the Afro-American on Stage and Film. Black Arts Drama, Black Theater and Black Life is the subject of this address by Imamu Amiri Baraka. Poet, dramatist and playwright. Introducing Mr. Baraka is Darwin Turner, Director of the Institute for Afro-American Culture at The University of Iowa. Darwin Turner: Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you this evening to this public presentation in the 5th Annual Institute for Afro-American Culture of The University of Iowa. Through the centuries, the artist, the writer has had varying relationships to a society. In some cultures, he's been considered a mere entertainer. In others, an exile. In others, an individual who considered himself above or outside the people. Darwin Turner: Our lecturer for this evening is one who has recognized the need for the writer in the Black community to be an individual who is a part of the group and who has the function not merely to create words that will be lost on air but thoughts that will educate a people. Our guest lecturer is Imamu Amiri Baraka. Our lecturer began his life in Newark, New Jersey where the birth records indicate the name LeRoi Jones. He was educated at Rutgers University in Newark and at Howard University. Here in detention as a poet as early as 1961. Darwin Turner: He has served as a poet and as a dramatist but he is recognized now much more for two responsibilities. Not merely the individual excellence as an artist, which earned a claim from critics. The functional responsibilities of serving both as a cultural leader and as a political leader. As a cultural leader, Imamu Amiri Baraka is an initiating force, a guiding spirit behind what has been called The Black Arts Movement. A force, which emphasizes the use of art for Black people. A force intended to educate Black people to awareness of their needs. Darwin Turner: As a political figure, Imamu Amiri Baraka has had responsibilities as the founder and chairman of the Committee for Unified Newark. Chairman of the Congress of African people. He was for a time a Secretary General of the National Black Assembly. This however is an Institute in drama. We're particularly concerned with Imamu Baraka's achievements as a dramatist and as the founder first of the Repertory Theater in New York. Now, of Spirit House. He's the author of plays, which have gained national and international attention. Many of you have seen Dutchman, which was staged on this campus. Darwin Turner: I hope with proper royalties paid to Imamu Amiri Baraka, which has been filmed. He's widely known also for Black revolutionary plays. It gives me great pleasure, ladies and gentlemen to introduce to you an individual who certainly did not need the too long introduction that I've given to him. Imamu Amiri Barak to talk on the subject of Black Theater and Black Life. Imamu Amiri Bar...: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Again, good evening. Thank you very much for the introduction. I want to speak tonight about Black Drama, Black Life. Not only as a dramatist or an artist but also as Chairman, Committee for Unified Newark, Congress of African People to Nationalist in Pan-African Organizations. Even though I want to talk about drama and art, essentially it would be very close to what I would be talking about if I were talking about anything as far as the projection of ideas. First of all, art we believe is an expression of life. Imamu Amiri Bar...: I think that is simple enough. There would be a few people who would probably contradict that. Who might say that life is an expression of art. We are from the traditional school and that we believe that art is an expression of life. That art as such expresses the values of the artist. As such, it is a manifestation of the artist's value system. It means simply that art is one particular aspect of culture, of a culture. Art expresses the values of its creator. The values being what you think is good and what you think is bad, what you think is beautiful and what you think is ugly. Imamu Amiri Bar...: European art suggests European life. It is a manifestation of European values. These are very simple statements but I think faced with the kind of intentional mysticism that surrounds the Western art process that these statements sometimes are so simple as to be left out of every conversation people in the West have about art and creativity. That is art is an expression of life. It expresses the values of the artist. It is a manifestation of the artist's value system. All artists are shaped by the society in which they live, context of their lives. European art suggest European life. Imamu Amiri Bar...: It's a manifestation of European values. Black art in the sense that we first used it meant not only an art that was an expression of Black life but revolutionary art. The theater we spoke of was revolutionary theater. A theater that was Black by color and that it was created by Black people. Black by culture and that it was an expression of African culture but also Black in terms of its consciousness. That it wanted to create a political statement that would benefit Black people. A theater that is revolutionary and that it seeks to transform reality. Imamu Amiri Bar...: Revolutionary in that it is a weapon in the arsenal of world revolution. In here, we begin to come into conflict with the definitions of art given by Europeans. The ability to define of course being the ability to control who defines controls. The person who defines is the person who has the power. Definitions are made with guns. The person with the most guns gives out the most definitions. Essentially, European art is simply a manifestation of European consciousness in all that that contains. Imamu Amiri Bar...: When we spoke about Black art, we wanted a theater that was an instrument of the Black consciousness but not simply skin Black. Not simply Black as a color but Black as a color, too. Not simply Black as a mold of tradition but that, too but Black in the sense of the consciousness, the political consciousness that it sought to raise and create. A theater based on African culture but also on the need to create a revolutionary African culture. To replace the colonized Negro culture, which most of our lives are an example. Imamu Amiri Bar...: We mean by that that we as a people, as Black people are colonized Negroes, colonized controlled by others. Lacking self-determination, politically controlled economically by Europeans. By revolutionary art, we met an art that would fight that. That would be a statement against, would be a transformation of the Negro colonized culture into a revolutionary African culture. By revolutionary art, we mean as Ron Karenga said that it had to be collective, functional and committing. Collective that it had to express a whole people. That it had to come from a whole people. Imamu Amiri Bar...: That it had to speak to a whole people. Functional in that it had a use. It was specific. A specific use in the struggle to liberate ourselves. Committing in that it committed us to the struggle. It committed us specifically to the struggle. By revolutionary, it meant that it also had to be anti-racist. It had to be anti-capitalist. It had to be anti-imperialist. We come to the second conflict. The first one is that the European will say, "Well, isn't art universal? Doesn't art speak to everybody's lives?" Imamu Amiri Bar...: They will say after teaching you that Mozart is superior to Charlie Parker because he wrote stuff down. After having imposed their culture on every people that they could in the world, which is the definition of racism, of people trying to impose their culture on another people. In the universal is the particular. In the particular is contained the universal. Even white folks know that. Marx knew that. The idea that somehow, that would spoke of a particular could not be a universal is not only inaccurate scientifically but it is a coverup for racism. Imamu Amiri Bar...: It is a coverup for the fact that European art is exactly what European culture is. Exploitative, racist, imperialist and so we wanted to create an art that was an expression of ourselves but not an expression of ourselves as slaves. Although we had to express ourselves as slaves sometimes so that we ourselves can see ourselves as slaves and know what to do about that slavery. How to destroy that slavery but we wanted an art that would show us beating the slave master. We wanted an art that would show us triumphing. We wanted an art that would be a weapon against cultural aggression. Imamu Amiri Bar...: Cultural aggression as Ahmed Sékou Touré, the President of Guinea says, "It's much more dangerous the military aggression." Because even fools know when they're being shot at but cultural aggression means that the colonizer puts bad institutions into our community. He puts bad ideas into our community. He puts negative values into our community so that for instance, the only Black artist we might see on television, the mass theater of the United States would be a pathological Negro who made fun of Black women once a week. Imamu Amiri Bar...: To try to tell us that our mothers and our wives and our sisters and the women that we love who are ignorant, who are funny. That they could be laughed at between commercials of underarm deodorants. That's cultural aggression. That 24 hours a day on a soul station, we could listen to some marionette spin records for us that would tell us to kill ourselves. To put on our wigs. To drink our wine. To snort our dope. To ride around with the Cisco Kid. To pervert our lives as an exact brown replica of American degeneracy. Imamu Amiri Bar...: By cultural aggression, we mean the normal educational system in America, which teaches us to be white racist from the time we are in Kindergarten. Usually, by the time we have come through high school, there's a chance for us to escape being white racist, which is detrimental if you are Black. Usually after another four years of college, it takes that four years of college to really transform those of us into bonafide white racists. Because once we get into college, then we find out that the white boy is not only powerful but he is profound. Imamu Amiri Bar...: We have it explained to us how Aristotle and the rest of them are really the geniuses of the planet. It's why those of us who have been exposed to the cultural aggression of the so-called higher education institutions are most in jeopardy of becoming counter revolutionaries. Because we have been exposed to cultural aggression so much longer than our brothers and sisters on the street. It led Amilcar Cabral to say that the masses of the people, the grassroots people are the true repositories of all culture. As such, are the chief resistors against cultural aggression. Imamu Amiri Bar...: They resist cultural aggression by being examples of what the culture is. Unassaulted or least assaulted by cultural aggression. When we talked about Black art, we meant art that was not only skin Black. Not only summoned up our cultural experience but also made a political statement, was conscious. We also meant a revolutionary African art that was based on a value system that was beneficial for Black people. A value system. All art speaks to and from a value system. All art is propaganda for some system. All art is philosophy. All art speaks to or from some condition that it wants to maintain or change. Imamu Amiri Bar...: Revolutionary African art, revolutionary Black art, we meant based on a value system such as our own, Nguzo Saba, the seven principles. Unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. An art that would be based on unity of Black people rather than dividing Black people. An art that was based on self-determination. That in itself was an expression of self-determination. The act of self-determination for us to say Black art was an act of self-determination. An art that would be about self-determination. Imamu Amiri Bar...: Showing that self-determination was superior to being the colonized Negroes. Superior to being manipulated by our enemies and not that spoke of collectivism. Collective work and responsibility as opposed to individualism, which is mythological or pathological. Mythological for whites. Mythological and pathological for Blacks. Collective work and responsibility. A collective art. You see when we say that art is a manifestation of the value system, European art is a manifestation of European values. Imamu Amiri Bar...: Art in itself, that artistic expression when of course, the white artist talks about art for art's sake, which does not exist. It is a myth. Still, what he is saying is trying to create an elitist concept that somehow, art can only be appreciated by the chosen few. In that sense, that theory of art is the same as if it was manifested as an economic theory, which we would call capitalism. That somehow, the wealth of the world can only be shared by that chosen few. All of those chosen few of course are white. With those few acceptable bloods who are on the receiving line. It is the same value, art for art's sake. Imamu Amiri Bar...: If a man paints a Campbell soup can, it means that he thinks it is valuable. If you see it a thousand years from now and look at it, it will be a painting of a Campbell soup can. We will say, "What was of value in that society?" They will say, "This must be it." This must be what was of value because look, the artist painted it and left it here. To symbolize the great virtue and worth of this society. A society is judged by how much it benefits its citizens. A society is judged on how much it benefits its systems, the level of its social organization. Imamu Amiri Bar...: Many times, people speak of the European world as being advanced technologically. America especially, modern America, advanced America. America is in reality a very primitive culture. People that cannot solve the basic problems of social organization, how to educate people, how to give people enough to eat, how to close people, how to house people has not solved the basic conditions that were upon men in the dawn of civilization. Imamu Amiri Bar...: If what you have done is create modern ways to destroy civilization, if the most advanced aspect of your technology is a new way to kill hundreds of thousands of people at the same time, then actually, you don't have an advanced civilization. You have a civilization that needs to be destroyed so that actual real civilization, progressive civilization can begin again. Can start again so that a new life based on progress and science can begin again. The value system of our revolutionary Black art includes ujima, cooperative economics. In that it celebrates the cooperative. It celebrates socialism. Imamu Amiri Bar...: It celebrates the living together process of people in their wall, in their struggle against that which deprives people of life. It is an anti-capitalist theater. It is an anti-capitalist drama. It is an anti-imperialist art. It is an anti-imperialist theater. We say ujima because we want to make certain that we are speaking again of the African responsibility, the Black people's responsibility to create a scientific socialism out of their own experience and not become merely the followers of yet another European preacher. Many of our brothers, the right wouldn't save them so they go to the left. Imamu Amiri Bar...: They couldn't be saved by Thomas Jefferson or George Washington or The Beatles. They want to go and find a European salvation to their problems. They always want a European salvation no matter what it is. Whether it's one white boy telling them to get in golf or another white boy telling them something else, the opposite. We are demanding self-determination as our first criteria for our development. An art that has as part of its value system purpose. That art, that theater, that must show the purpose of our lives is to build and develop our communities. To restore our people to their traditional greatness. Imamu Amiri Bar...: Our theater of purpose, an art that has that as its purpose. An art that values kuumba, creativity that stresses, that's part of its value system. Kuumba, a Swahili word meaning creativity. To be creative rather than imitative. To express ourselves in our inimitable or I shouldn't say inimitable because after it's around a while, it is very much imitatable. Creative in the sense that it uses our own resources, our own value system, our own history, our own approach and attitude toward life rather than imitating the imitators. Imamu Amiri Bar...: We find this is especially true Black artists who usually are those people who have come to these colleges that have been assaulted day in and day out by various theories of how white expression is the only kind of art. That how a white description of the world is the only description which is profound or beautiful. When we say creativity, when we say kuumba, we mean that in the sense of an original creativity that springs from our own resources rather than imitating those who exploit us. Finally, imani, the 7th principle that our revolutionary art must be based on, the principle imani, which means faith. Imamu Amiri Bar...: That is faith in our own powers to transform reality. Faith in our own ability to liberate ourselves. Faith in our own strength, in our own will and self-determination. Much of the art that is created by Black people or I shouldn't say much of. Much of the art that is projected in this society created by Black people is a colonized art. Colonized art in the sense that it is shaped by the values and institutions, the way of life of the colonizer. In the same sense that in our communities, we have a colonized politics and a colonized economics and a colonized religion. Imamu Amiri Bar...: A deculturalized expression because part of the assassination of the African, the transformation of the African into the Negro was the process of deculturalization. Deculturalization, which means the imposition of another culture. The imposition of a European expression upon an African expression. In all the seven aspects or the aspects of culture that is religion and history and politics and economics and social organization and creativity and ethos, you can see the manifestations. You can see the examples of this deculturalization process of all Africans in the world. Imamu Amiri Bar...: Those of us here in the West are the most Europeanized because we have been subjected and subjugated by European expression. When we look at our religion, we look at our politics, our economics, our history, it is only based on the consciousness of a revolutionary Black nationalism. That we can begin to transform that colonized expression of our lives into a truly self-determining, self-respecting expression. We mean by deculturalization for instance, African religion on the continent of Africa always expresses spirit worship. Imamu Amiri Bar...: In the small churches, the grassroots churches, the sanctified churches still spirit worship. People get happy like they say. They all move. They dance. They sing. They are moved by the spirit, the culture, the African culture as manifest through religion in a Negro church. The deculturalization process actually takes the spirit worship out of the church so that the Negro can sit up in a Negro church and act just like white people do in their churches. Cold and silent and bland and dead. Imamu Amiri Bar...: We talk about the deculturalization of politics or the deculturalization of history, the deculturalization of African history transforms African history which is the history of our people into Negro history, which is the history of the people in slavery. A record of all the times that Negroes have been with white people helping white people subjugate the rest of the world's peoples. Who killed the most people at San Juan Hill? The Negro that helped white folks in the Battle of Midway? Crispus Attucks who died in the white people's revolutionary war? Imamu Amiri Bar...: The deculturalization of our history, the deculturalization of our politics, the deculturalization of our economics. In politics, instead of us trying to build political institutions to gain, maintain and use power for ourselves, we talk about the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the Socialist Workers Party as if any of these European institutions were designed to liberate Black people. In economics, we go for the gold this rap used to say. Talk about Black capitalism rather than ujima or cooperative economics. Black capitalism being a psychological state rather than a statement about economics. Imamu Amiri Bar...: In a sense that we say we have a colonized politics or colonized economics, we also have a colonized art. The anti-creativity of the Negro imitator of Europeans to speak about the European imitator of African is simply to talk about the normal exploitative relationship between Europe and the colored peoples of the world. The fact that blind [Willie Tom] down in Birmingham taught blind John Lennon of The Beatles how to sing is an interesting footnote. As Lennon goes to the bank. Blind Willie Tom goes to run his elevator up and down for the 900 thousandth time. Imamu Amiri Bar...: The white imitation of Black art is the normal exploitative process that goes on between the colonizer and the colonized. Between the Benny Goodman who is the King of Swing and Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Between Paul Whiteman who is the King of Jazz and the Louis Armstrong's and the King Oliver's and the Jelly Roll Morton's who are its true creators. The Black art that we call for in the '60s has been co-opted in large part by the white boy in the same way that the white nation co-opts everything in Black life. Imamu Amiri Bar...: Just as Dr. Martin Luther King talked about we shall overcome, so Lyndon Johnson starts saying, "We shall overcome." As a matter of fact, when they buried Lyndon Johnson, they were playing We Shall Overcome over his grave. When he was the very person that we were trying to overcome at that time. Just as the brothers and sisters in the Black Panther party say, "Power to the people," so Richard Nixon also would say power to the people and make that phrase meaningless. We would also talk about Africa and African revolution and African culture. Imamu Amiri Bar...: Richard in his wisdom would send his bad-looking wife to Africa dressed up in a boubou and a gaelle. They had discovered that if you could not destroy something, the best thing to do would be to eat it up. Black by the end of the '60s had almost no meaning. For every Black we say that could add something to it that was negative, Black capitalism. They have ads on the radio you can be Black and navy, too. In terms of Black art, when we talk in the middle of the '60s about the need for Black images, the white boy decided that indeed, there was a need for Black images. Imamu Amiri Bar...: He looked at his books and saw that his flicks were dying in the face of television. He erected some "Black images", some Black face images, which were in reality, filled with the same degeneracy. The same negative European values. The same anti-Blackness of any of the white images. The various super flies and hit men and Negro detectives with their obligatory anti-nationalist editorial in each film, their obligatory counter revolutionary anthem in each film. The end of so-called Black films are just as bad a rip off as the old Stepin Fetchit films. They have modernized Stepin Fetchit's image. Imamu Amiri Bar...: Given Stepin Fetchit some new background music. For every buck in the preacher that gets through, or for every few seconds of a few other flicks, we could name that get through the endless amount of negative anti-Black garbage streams out, rolls out. In reality, the reason for that is the very Negroes that we left in the various Bohemias and the various white institutions who were shot when we talked about Black art, these were the very Negroes who were anti-Black self-determination, anti-nationalist, anti-Pan-Africanist, anti-ujima. Because they reflected the colonizers' needs. Imamu Amiri Bar...: These were the very Negroes who the white boy took and made into the so-called Black artists that he needed for the '70s. The films of the '70s are part of the coaptation of the late '60s. Much of the Black theater is part of the coaptation of the late '60s with the Fords and the Rockerfellers created Negro arts theaters when we talked about Black arts theaters. Black skin films full of degeneracy. The image of their own lifestyle, their values created by their institutions. The Black artist anywhere else must create an art that speaks of, that is about and an example of nationalism. Imamu Amiri Bar...: The art must be an example of revolutionary Black nationalism in the sense that it must create for us an identity, a way for us again our identity, recreate in us an identity as Malcolm said. That the transformation of our society must begin with the transformation of ourselves from a colonized people into a people aware of their own need to create a revolution. That art must also speak of Pan-Africanism. It must speak to the fact that we are one people. That wherever we are in the world, we are African people. Whether in the United States or the West Indies or the continent of Africa, that we are one people. Imamu Amiri Bar...: That it is one struggle. Across the earth, the struggle is against European domination. Our theater must speak of the need for revolution. It must show what obstructs the revolution. It must be inspirational and educational. It must show revolution. I remember it was amusing to me when we got arrested, the few times that we got arrested, that in every occasion or even today, when they are trying Kawaida Towers. That even though the white boy always says that art and life are different things and his pathological schizophrenia. How can art be different from life? Imamu Amiri Bar...: It would have to exist out in some unimaginable void since anything we could think of is a part of life. He says that art and life are separate. Yet every time we are busted, the first thing he does is read my poems. The first thing he does is read the poetry as an example of why we need to be condemned and locked up. We understand that. Because we know that aesthetics is the same as ethos. We know that aesthetics and ideology are the same thing. What you think is good is a political good. What you think is beautiful is a political beautiful. What you think is negative is a political negativity. Imamu Amiri Bar...: The artist that says that his art is not political means that he is trying to support the status quo. The Black artist who claims that his art need not speak to the need for the people's struggle is only letting you know that he is part of that establishment that needs to be destroyed in order for most of the world's people to live. Our art must speak of the need for revolution. It must show what obstructs the revolution. It must be inspirational. It must inspire. It must be educational. It must educate. Just as we said our art must be collective, it must be functional. It must be committing. Imamu Amiri Bar...: It must be collective in that it is a mass art. That it speaks to the majority of our people. That it is part of the expression of the majority of the masses of our people. Functional in the sense that it has the same use that an airplane has or a factory or a machine gun. That it is that concrete and that useful, that specific, that definite, that functional. Committing in that when you see it, you must be committed to do the thing your ideology says that you should do. Imamu Amiri Bar...: Including coming out of slave ship says, critic for the New York Times says, "This play makes me uncomfortable. This play says something that I do not want to hear." What should it do? What else should it do? That is its function. That is its function. Its function is to aid in the destruction of a society which is opposed to human life and development. Its function is to transform reality. Its function is to help transform reality. Not to exist in fantasy. Not to exist as idol entertainment for the colonizers and the slave masters to giggle but to transform reality. To transform reality. Imamu Amiri Bar...: We cannot be simply artists in the European definition of what artist is. Because most European definitions are by definition anti-Black, anti-African. We must be political activists whose art is our weapon. Our tool, our contribution to the world, African liberation. Also, we must be living example of the values that we try to write about. We must be an example ourselves. You cannot make revolution unless you are revolutionary. The first thing that needs to be transformed when talking about transforming reality is to transform yourself. Imamu Amiri Bar...: Because either you are an example of revolution or you are an example of what the revolution needs to destroy. There is no middle ground. There is no neutrality. There is no board spectator. Either you are positive or negative. Either you are plus or minus. Either you are with the good guys or the bad guys. There is no middle ground. There is no neutrality. We must be an example of those values that we seek to replace the decadent values that control the world with. Imamu Amiri Bar...: We must be an example of that ourselves because our lives are more articulate and forceful statements of our philosophy than anything we can write or create. The largest work of art is the world itself. The largest work of art is the world itself. The creation of a nation, of people is much more dramatic, much more totally significant in the world than the creation of a couple of poems. Our way of life must be revolutionary. As I said, we must be living examples of the values we write about because we are living examples of it anyway. What we are is what we write about. Imamu Amiri Bar...: What we are exactly, what we are is what we write about. We are exactly what we say we are. Our way of life must be revolutionary African. Our values must be revolutionary African. We must as well be engaged in the struggle to build alternative institutions to the ones that enslave us. Revolutionary Black institutions, revolutionary African institutions, we must be willing and engaged in the struggle to build alternative institutions. Our culture is maintained and developed by institutions. European institutions are to maintain and develop European culture. Nothing else. Nothing else. Imamu Amiri Bar...: They have never been for any other thing. They will never be for any other thing. That's what they are for. We must be about the business of creating alternatives to those institutions. Where we can maintain and develop our culture and transform that culture into a revolutionary culture. Transform that culture into one of self-determination, self-respect and self-defense. We must be helping in the creation of revolutionary African educational institutions, revolutionary African creative institutions, theaters, film, companies, orchestras. Imamu Amiri Bar...: Revolutionary African scholarship, health centers, just as we must first create a revolutionary Black political party, a revolutionary economics. Part of our job as creative persons those of us who are must be to help with the construction of revolutionary Black institutions. We hear people talk about European artists did three and 400 years. People are talking about Haydn and Mozart and whatnot did 300 years, 400 years. Louis Jordan died 10 years ago. Roy Eldridge walks around the street looking for a job. Duke Ellington, age 74 is being congratulated on him having outlasted racism and capitalism. Imamu Amiri Bar...: While the George Gershwin's and the Leonard Bernstein's who are congratulated for being imitators. Who are celebrated as the heads of orchestras and the heads of symphonic expression and so we must begin to create institutions to maintain and develop our expression. We do not recognize artists, Touré said. We do not recognize artists. We do not recognize students or workers or teachers but only supporters of the African revolution. We do not recognize the artist. We do not recognize the student, the worker, the instructor. Imamu Amiri Bar...: We do not recognize anything of being of any value except supporters of the revolution. It does not matter what you do or what you know or what skill you have. Unless you are a supporter of the revolution of no value. It is of no value. It is absolutely of no value at all. We do not recognize it. If you want to create a revolutionary work of art, you must be part of the people's struggle to make a revolution. If you want to create a revolutionary work of art, you must be part of the people's righteous effort to make a revolution and then the art will come as a matter of course. Imamu Amiri Bar...: You can't stand up in the bastion of counter revolutionary and sanity and be creating revolutionary works. What you create will be a reflection of your life. What you are is what you will create. We have been working to create those Black institutions. Working to educate our community. Try to transform our reality. I think some of the things I said tonight, the very brief, I hope some of those of you here will be able to use the words. I hope they are functional. Because I know it's very difficult to be inside places like this and get out alive. It's very difficult. Imamu Amiri Bar...: I commend those of you who managed to do it. Because the only reason Black students should be in here is trying to get some skill. Some skill, some concrete, usable, functional skill. I like to read two poems to end this presentation. It's called Habari Gani. Swahili for What's the news? What's happening? Imamu Amiri Bar...: The waking colony yawns worldwide. Yawning, dancing, yawning singers, pimps yawn, turning the corner in a gray world. Scattered cements, scattered lots. Vacant gaps of ugly colony are yawning void. Threatening Black sanity with its constant negative criticism. Niggas sharper than doo-doo doing the doo-doo, which is not about doing anything real. They yawn. It's early morning in their head or maybe even early evening. Pre-war sluggishness, a permanent blown mind. A snaggle brain dope dipper whining in tune with Nixon's wooden constipation. Pat sprays. Roy says something about one flag for all Americans. Essex slays half a dozen raw funky honkies. Braces them for history to eat up. History of a race waken up. Yawns right now. Yawns right now is our real national anthem. Race waken up. Brothers stretching their arms stiff. Sisters ran back stretching their mouths. A race waken up. Wake up, race. Get finished yawning in a minute. Do the cat stretch good until electric tunes back in from sole to sole. Hair be fire. Fingers be clenching and itching to be at something. Wake up, race. It's really wait for a day early, early morning. Quiet in the universe despite the insane clatter of the real dream of devils running the earth. It's a real dream that blood and screams and maniacs and cheap suits and white faces that they try and crush our life. It's a real dream. It's real, all right. It's a real dream. It will go away if you wake up. Race, yawning, yawning. First breeze. The eastern hum. This nigga's mouth's popping wide open and then stretching, trying to open their eyes. Wake up, race. It's history, history, history. We're watching spooky motion picture mist blown away cold air. Brace your wind across cool lakes. Cool bright morning. Wake up, race. We waking. You're watching a whole race wake up. Imamu Amiri Bar...: This is a poem that was written in Conakry, Guinea in February where I went to the funeral of Amílcar Cabral, the late Secretary General, PAIGC. Who was assassinated by Portuguese colonialism. Of course, which is supported and paid for by America. $457 million in our tax money given to the Portuguese. The United States of America, even though it is the largest industrial power that has Africans who could influence its domestic policies. 30 million Africans inside the United States of America. The second largest African nation in the world being Africans in the United States. Africans with a gross national product of $40 billion a year. Imamu Amiri Bar...: Yet the United States of America continues to support Rhodesia. Continues to support Portugal and Mozambique and Angola. Continues to support South Africa. Continues to buy Rhodesian chrome because African people in this country are not yet clearly aware that they are Africans. That's why we emphasize Pan-Africanism. Same money that was taken away from the OEO. At the same time, the free lunch program was destroyed. It was the same time the money was given to the Portuguese to destroy Africans. Now that the Europeans, the Americans have been kicked out of Southern Asia, as soon as Watergate cools down a bit, they will stumble on over to Africa. Try to stick their straws in the hearts of our motherland. I think there's something for all of us to be aware of. Begin to resist, begin to raise our African consciousness. Imamu Amiri Bar...: African revolution. African people all over the world suffering from white domination. African people all over the world trying to liberate their African nations. African people all over the world under the yoke, the gun, the hammer, the lash. African people all over the world being killed and stifled, melted down for the white boys' cash. African people all over the world conscious, unconscious, struggling, sleeping, resisting, timing, killing the enemy, killing each other. Being hurt, surviving, understanding, held in ignorance, bursting out of chains, lying for Nixon. Drowning colonialists being shut down in the street. African people everywhere. African people all over the world evolving because of and in spite of ourselves. African people all over the world trying to make revolution. The world must be changed. Split open and changed. All poverty, sickness, ignorance, racism must be eradicated. Whoever pushes these plagues then also must be eradicated. All capitalists, racists, liars, imperialists, all who cannot change, they must also be eradicated. Their lifestyle, philosophies, habits, flunkies, pleasures wiped out, eliminated. The world must be changed. The world must be changed. Split open and changed. Transform, turn upside down. No more poverty. No more dirty, ragged Black people except from hard work to beautify and energize a world we help create. Death to backward powers. Death to bare dancers. No more trash piled up in the streets. No more wind in the bedroom. No more Europeans in penthouses and colored people in tents with no houses. Death to disease and carriers of disease. All disease must be cured. Imamu Amiri Bar...: Individuals who love disease must be re-educated. If they resist world unity and the progress of all races, kill them. Don't hesitate. Kill them. They are the plague. No more filthy places for us to live and be uneducated. No more aimless Black children with nothing to do but die. Death to the creators of unemployment. What do they do for a living? They are thieves. Jail them. Nixon is a sick thief. Why does he remain alive? Who was in charge of killing him? Why is it that Cabral and Lumumba and Nkrumah, Moumie, Malcolm, Dr. King, Mondlane, Mark Essex all can be killed by criminals and the criminals are not hung from bridges? No more unfair societies. We are for world progress. Be conscious of your life. We need food. We need homes. Good housing, not shacks. Let only people who want to live in roached gyms, live in roached gyms. We do not want to live with roaches. Let Nixon live with roaches if he wants to. He is closer to a roach. What is the difference between Nixon and a roach? Death to bad housing. Death to no work. We need work. We need education so we can build houses and create work for ourselves. All over the world we, Africans need to make progress. Why do Europeans, why do white people, why do ignorant people of our own race obstruct us? Stop obstructing us, Europeans. Stop obstructing us, ignorant people of our own race. Niggas, neo-colonized Amos and Andy's everywhere in the African world. No more traitors. Death to traitors. Dope pushers should be killed. Niggas who inform on revolutionary movement should be killed, assassins masquerading as heroes. Butlers masquerading as presidents of African and Asian and South American nations. They have made them donations so the white boy can make his bread. Leaders who want dialog with South Africa, leaders who want to box in South Africa, leaders who want to sing in South Africa. Leaders who want to observe South Africa, these are not leaders but pleaders. They should be beaten until their yolk and their white are stiff and exposed. Imamu Amiri Bar...: No more useless pain. We must refuse to be sold out by anyone. The world can be changed. We do not have to lick the pavements. All over the world, the world can be changed. No more stupid ugliness everywhere. Death to the vultures of primitive disease and ignorance. America must change or be destroyed. Europe must change or be destroyed. Capitalism must be destroyed. Imperialism will die. Empty-handed mummified Niggas who support white rule over Black people will be killed, too. Dope peddlers, pimps, teachers who teach Europe's lies, doctors who love money more than the people. Muggers, pretenders of revolution, sterile intellectual, soul singers who sold their soul to the soulless, alive people who live their lives for the dead, all changed or die. Imamu Amiri Bar...: The world revolution cannot be stopped. Understand a new criteria of life or forfeit what little life you have. We will not be poor any longer. We will not be dirty or ashamed of ourselves. Racists, capitalists, imperialists, sick people of the world, fascists, white rulers or Black. Lovers of disease, change or die. Oppressed people of the world, change or die. African people all over the world, rise and shine. African people all over the world, the future's ours. We will create on our feet, not our knees. It is a future of great works and freedom but we cannot crawl through life drunk and unconscious. We cannot dance through life, read the New York Times through life or wear vests all our life. Give our lives to parties or work with no reason but life in a prison of white domination. Be conscious. New Speaker: Black people, Negroes, colored people, Afro-Americans, be conscious. You know you can run your own life. You can have all the money and food and good life you need. Be conscious. Meet once a week. Meet once a week. Talk about how to get more money. How to get educated, how to have scientists for children rather than junkies. How to kill the roaches, how to stop the toilet from stinking. How to get a better job. Once a week, start now how to dress better. How to read, how to live longer, how to be respected. Meet once a week. Once a week. All over the world, we need to meet once a week. All over the world, African soul brothers, good sisters, we need to meet. How to live long, to be healthy, to build houses, run cities. Understand life. Be happy. You need to meet once a week. Okay. All over the world, once a week. All over the world, Africans, sweet, beautiful Africans. Newark Africans, Niggers, too. Harlem Africans and spooks, Ghana Africans, bloods. San Francisco Africans, brothers. African Africans, Indugu. West Indian Africans, Hey, mon. South American Africans, hermano. Francophone Africans, monsieur. Anglophone Africans, Mister Man. Anywhere Africans, Africans, Africans, Africans, people. Africans, Africans, Africans, watu wazuri. Africans all over the world moving to the new way. A world of good people is coming. We're going to help make that world. We're going to help eliminate the negative, accentuate the positive. Yellow folks, brown folks, red folks will, too. They hurting. Imamu Amiri Bar...: I can't speak for white folks. They'll speak for themselves. The rest of us, everybody, everybody, everybody let us first deal with us Africans all over the world. Yes, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere we are Africans. We're going to make change. Change or die, Africans. Change or die. To the whole world, too. We are Africans. Love is our passport to the perfectibility of humanity. Work and study struggle in victory. Asante sana.