15 Facts About LeRoi Jones

LeRoi Jones was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at several universities, including the University at Buffalo and Stony Brook University.

LeRoi Jones's mother Anna Lois was a social worker.

LeRoi Jones won a scholarship to Rutgers University in 1951 but transferred in 1952 to Howard University.

LeRoi Jones subsequently studied at Columbia University and The New School without taking a degree.

LeRoi Jones's commanding officer received an anonymous letter accusing Baraka of being a communist.

LeRoi Jones later described his experience in the military as "racist, degrading, and intellectually paralyzing".

LeRoi Jones had an extramarital affair with di Prima for several years; their daughter, Dominique di Prima, was born in June 1962.

LeRoi Jones stated in the same work that as an element of American culture, the Negro was entirely misunderstood by Americans.

LeRoi Jones was sentenced to three years in prison.

LeRoi Jones later joked that he was charged with holding "two revolvers and two poems".

LeRoi Jones believed that the groundbreakers in the Black Arts Movement were doing something that was new, needed, useful, and black, and those who did not want to see a promotion of black expression were "appointed" to the scene to damage the movement.

In 1990 he co-authored the autobiography of Quincy LeRoi Jones, and in 1998 he was a supporting actor in Warren Beatty's film Bulworth.

LeRoi Jones viewed blacks as morally superior than whites, who he believed are innately evil.

LeRoi Jones wrote of Jesus as a "fag" and as "the dead jew" who, Baraka argues, was a Jewish scam on Christians.

LeRoi Jones's co-founding of the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s promoted a uniquely black nationalist perspective and influenced an entire literary generation.