Malcolm X, Amiri Baraka, and ....

Last week, on the first day of my African American literature class that enrolls first-year collegiate Black men, I discussed four notable Black men cultural figures -- Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, Amiri Baraka, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. 

A fugitive slave turned abolitionist. A street hustler turned prominent Black nationalist hero. A writer turner pioneering ethnomusicologist, poet, and cultural critic. A college dropout turned journalist and major memoirist and comic book author. 

The class isn't about just those four, but after the conversation I did think about it. Well, first, I thought about a class focused on Malcolm and Baraka. We could cover so much. Beyond the content of their writing, we could discuss performance styles and legendary transformations of their personas. 

Ok, but why not Malcolm, Baraka, and Coates? Or, Douglass, Malcolm, and Baraka? If we're talking Baraka and his music writing, then we'd have to get to Greg Tate too, right? And if we included Baraka and Coates and creativity, we'd have to add Colson Whitehead, yes? 

What about the lineages of poets linked to Baraka? Where does that even start and end?  

Related:

• A Notebook on Amiri Baraka