On the back cover of Amiri Baraka's Transbluesency: 1961-1995, the noted American biographer and literary critic Arnold Rampersad writes: “Amiri Baraka stands with Wheatley, Douglas, Dunbar, Hughes, Hurston, Wright, Ellison, as one of the eight figures who have significantly affected the course of African American literary culture” (quoted in Schwartz 2016, 99). A poet, playwright, essayist, activist, lecturer, novelist, editor, anthologist, and director, Baraka is commonly acclaimed as a major contributor to modern African American letters, and his contribution lies in his influence on the direction of post-1960s African American writing. With a literary career spanning over fifty years, he devoted himself to the cause of Black liberation and the interrogation of the mainstream racism. His race-conscious poetry, particularly since the late 1960s, aims to provoke and shock its audience and bring attention to the plight of African Americans. In his youth, he was influenced by “the principles of Maulana Karenga's Kawaida (Swahili for tradition) doctrine” (Jones (Baraka) 1997, xiii). He followed Malcolm X's call for African Americans to recapture their “heritage and identity” and liberate themselves “from the bonds of White supremacy” (Malcolm X quoted in Massingale 2010, 70). In doing so, he encouraged a generation of writers, including Sonia Sanchez, to unapologetically utilize experimental poetic modes, com-bined with their own rich African American cultural heritage, as a political weapon. In “Citizen Cain,” Baraka not only calls for confrontational action but also encourages himself to be engaged in it:

Baraka articulated his sociopolitical, cultural aims through various artistic communities, namely the Beat movement (1957–1963), Black cultural nationalism (1965–1974), and Marxist-Leninist-Maoist thought (post- 1975). Indeed, Baraka, as a poet and activist, did not restrict himself to one political or literary ideology: “Consistency is one of the last words one would use in characterizing Baraka's thinking during the first two decades of his career” (Mackey 1993, 22, italics original).