Intended to cut clean through the oppression imposed upon the mainstream by society's ""intellectual superstructure,"" this collection of revolutionary essays by literary and cultural legend Amiri Baraka raises numerous issues concerning contemporary African American life. The socially conscious will appreciate the creative analyses and stimulating critiques on display here, buoyed by Baraka's distinctive, bold, and aggressive opinions about the ways our culture bestows ignorance upon the ignorant merely to exploit them.

Amiri Baraka is renowned as the founder of the Black Arts Movement in Harlem in the 1960s. He is a professor emeritus at the State University of New York-Stony Brook and the former Poet Laureate of New Jersey. He is the author of more