Amiri Baraka

“I was Everett LeRoi Jones. My grandfather's name was Everett.”

“My own thinking has evolved. You find Africanisms in American speech. You find an African influence on United States culture. There are all kinds of Africanisms in America, as you would expect, if you really thought about it... That whole thing is much broader; the influence is much broader than I first understood.”

“The black artist's role in America is to aid in the destruction of America as he knows it.”

“Thought is more important than art. To revere art and have no understanding of the process that forces it into existence, is finally not even to understand what art is.”