Baraka's early flash of brilliance did not go unnoticed. In his late twenties, he earned a John Hay Whitney Fellowship and an Obie for the violent drama Dutchman (1963), a taut, menacing vehicle for black consciousness-raising. It succeeded off-Broadway the same year he produced The Toilet, The Baptism, and The Slave. The latter is an explosive drama depicting racist confrontations of the times. A kingpin of the Black Arts Movement by 1964, Baraka was visiting scholar at the University of Buffalo. After his adoption of a Muslim name, he settled in Harlem to write J-E-L-L-O (1965), a denunciation of a public figure, and autobiographical fiction, The System of Dante's Hell (1965), which earned him a Guggenheim Fellowship. His work sharpened in Home: Social Essays (1966) and fueled the drive for the Black Arts Repertory Theater School, one of New York City's cultural landmarks. He completed Arm Yourself or Harm Yourself (1967) and collaborated with Larry Neal on Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing (1968).
Outside these literary coups, Baraka's Marxist-Leninist activism has placed him in positions of power. In March 1972, he led the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, which drew 3,500 delegates from the United States and the Caribbean and prefaced a permanent consortium, the Congressional Black Caucus. While residing in Newark, he focused on black activism and Afro-Islamic culture with the establishment of Spirit House, a gathering spot and drama center. After his arrest on a concealed weapons charge, he pursued black nationalism through an Afro-centric cult, the Temple of Kawaida.
