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LeROI JONES AND THE NEW BLACK WRITERS OF THE SIXTIES

KATHRYN JACKSON

THE SIXTIES HAVE MARKED a new militancy in Black communities and likewise in Black literature. From the atrocious deaths by bombing of four little children attending Sunday school in a Birmingham church, to the assassinations of Malcom X as he was gaining the respect and support of grass-roots Black men to his philosophy of "Black nationalism," and of Martin Luther King as he was obtaining the confidence of the poor, many Afro-Americans have come to the conclusion that the only way to deal with the violence perpetrated by the white power structure against them, is to be violent in return. Out of desperation, Negroes have in the last five years, taken to the streets to show their hatred of their oppressors: by burning down their rat-infested tenements and pillaging all those stores in the neighborhood which since their establishment have been robbing ghetto dwellers by selling them rotten produce for higher prices. With clenched fists raised, Black militants take up their chant: "Um-ga-wah Black Power!, Um-ga-wah Black Power!!" And Eldridge Cleaver, leader of the Black Panthers, and now a political refugee, proclaims to those who seek to silence him and all politically and socially deprived men: "We shall have our manhood. We shall have it or the earth will be leveled by our attempts to gain it."1

The writings of the new Black artists proudly, defiantly proclaim their identification with the rising Black consciousness in the ghettos. With their writings, the Black authors hope to establish a Black aesthetic totally separated and opposed (at times) to the values and standards of white writers. They hope to elucidate on everything "Black and beautiful" and destroy all that exploits, denies or ignores them. Dudley Randall, writing on "Black Poetry," explains the new mood of the black poet, writer and artist:
 
Kathryn Jackson is a 21-year-old New Yorker and recent graduate of Goddard College. This essay is part of a larger work on "Black Literature of the Twentieth Century."

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