By ALEJANDRA PAULINO, age 12
- I was born on October 7,1934 in Newark, New Jersey.
- My given name was Everett LeRoi Jones, but in the late ’60s, I converted to Islam and adopted an Arabic name.
- I was a poet, writer, professor and political activist who fought for the civil rights in the United States.
- I am famous for being one of the major forces in the Black Arts movement of the 1960s and ’70s.
- During my involvement with the Black Nationalist movement during the 1960s, I wrote some very controversial things about women and people in the LGBTQ community. I distanced myself from these statements years later.
- I spent three years in the American Air Force. I was dishonorably discharged because some of my reading material made the Air Force suspect that I was a Communist.
- I received the PEN/Open Book Award in 2008 for my book, Tales of the Out and the Gone.
- In Harlem, I founded the Black Arts Repertory Theater, which staged many of my plays.
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ANSWER: Amiri Baraka
