Nation within a Nation
Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Black Power Politics
by Komozi Woodard

352 pp., 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, 25 illus., notes, bibl., index
February 1999
ISBN: 0-8078-2457-7 Hardcover $45.00
ISBN: 0-8078-4761-5 Paperback $17.95

   

Woodard explores the formative role played by the prize-winning playwright and Beat poet--best known as the father of the Black Arts Movement--in the politics of black cultural nationalism.

"This book tells the fascinating story of a struggle that nearly succeeded in creating self-determination in the urban ghetto, a nation within the nation. . . . [It] is not about yesterday but the roots of today, for any readers who ask why ghettos and barrios persist as permanent features of liberal urban America, and what is to be done about them."--Senator Tom Hayden

"A Nation within a Nation will be one of the most important studies of black urban politics and culture in the postwar period."--Robin D. G. Kelley, New York University

"This pathbreaking history of the transition from white to black political power in a northern city should be required reading for political scientists and urban planners, as well as for all citizens who care about the problems of race and class in urban America."--John Dittmer, DePauw University



Poet and playwright Amiri Baraka is best known as one of the African American writers who helped ignite the Black Arts Movement. This book examines Baraka's cultural approach to Black Power politics and explores his role in the phenomenal spread of black nationalism in the urban centers of late-twentieth-century America, including his part in the election of black public officials, his leadership in the Modern Black Convention Movement, and his work in housing and community development.

Komozi Woodard traces Baraka's transformation from poet to political activist, as the rise of the Black Arts Movement pulled him from political obscurity in the Beat circles of Greenwich Village, swept him into the center of the Black Power Movement, and ultimately propelled him into the ranks of black national political leadership. Moving outward from Baraka's personal story, Woodard illuminates the dynamics and remarkable rise of black cultural nationalism with an eye toward the movement's broader context, including the impact of black migrations on urban ethos, the importance of increasing population concentrations of African Americans in the cities, and the effect of the 1965 Voting Rights Act on the nature of black political mobilization.

Komozi Woodard is professor of American history at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. He has also worked extensively as an activist and journalist.


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