Spike Lee vs. Amiri Baraka

Baraka and Lee, November 1992 (source)

In the opening of the preface of Spike Lee and Ralph Wiley's book By Any Means Necessary: Trials And Tribulations of the Making of Malcolm X (1992), Lee points out that "resistance" to his work on the movie came from everywhere: "From Warner Brothers, the Completion Bond Co., the Teamsters, High Minister of Black Culture and Ethics Amiri Baraka and his gang, the media. Everyone got in some swings."

It stood out to me that Baraka is the only one that gets called out by name. Lee and Baraka traded barbs through the press in the lead up to the release of Lee's film Malcolm (1992). I gave some thought to their back and forth, and maybe I should return to it. For years, I thought the Malcolm movie was their main point of contention. 

However, this past summer, I came across a 1991 article revealed that previous negative tension emerged between Lee and Baraka based on book on Lee's work, titled Five for Five: The Films of Spike Lee (1991). "He wrote a piece that was 100 percent negative," Lee was quoted as saying concerning Baraka's contribution. "Not everybody [in the book] is saying Spike Lee is great, great. But this was so negative I said, I ain't running this." 

The tension between the two men became more pronounced and public leading to the release of Lee's Malcolm film. 

In a rally in Harlem in August 1991, Baraka told the crowd, "We will not let Malcolm X's life be trashed to make middle-class Negroes sleep easier." He told a Newsweek reporter that "Based on the movies I've seen, I'm horrified of seeing Spike Lee make Malcolm X."

When told of Baraka's comments, Lee responded, ""Where's [Baraka's] book on Malcolm? When Malcolm was of this earth Amiri Baraka was LeRoi Jones running around the Village being a beatnik. He didn't move to Harlem until after Malcolm X was assassinated. So a lot of these guys-not all-weren't even down with Malcolm when he was around ... I was 7 years old so I had an excuse. I had to be home by dark."

In an article in The Washington Post, Baraka was quoted as saying, "I was distressed he was taking up Malcolm and feared Malcolm would get the same treatment he had given the rest of black nationalism. Malcolm X's life is not a commercial property. It can't be claimed by a petit bourgeois Negro who has $40 million."

Lee responded, "I'm gonna make the kind of film I want to make. ... And who appointed Baraka chairman of the African American arts committee? Nobody tells him what poems and plays to write, so why is he trying to tell me what kind of film to make? He can write whatever he wants and I want the freedom to make my films."

The Washington Post presented a portion of a statement made by Baraka and the United Front to Preserve the Legacy of Malcolm X and the Cultural Revolution: ""Our distress about Spike's making a film on Malcolm X is based on our analysis of the films he has already made. Their caricature of Black people's lives, their dismissal of our struggle and the implication of their description of the Black nation as a few besieged buppies surrounded by an irresponsible lumpen is disturbing to the group."

Then, a portion of Lee's response was presented: "Baraka was LeRoi Jones, then living with a white woman in Greenwich Village, and only went running to Harlem after Malcolm was dead. I was 8; what's Baraka's excuse?"

Given their tension I took note of an article in 2014 after Baraka died. An article in the Amsterdam News described a wake for Baraka at the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey. "Despite Baraka’s scathing critique of Spike Lee’s portrayal of Malcolm X in his biographical flick, the Brooklynite director paid his respects on Friday," the article reported.