I recall how abashed I was after I’d misspelled the name of an activist/artist he’d eulogized in a First piece. He never came on from above, never whipped out his rod of correction. But there was one piece I wished he’d never had to write-his anguished paean for his daughter Shani and her partner, Ray Ray Holmes, murdered by (to quote Baraka) “a HIN who killed them because he felt it was wrong for these two women to love each other, to want to be together rather than with him, or with other men, black or white, like him.” I feel obliged to recall that heart-break now since one mixed-up summing-up stuck on Baraka’s supposed homophobia claimed his “tears” for Shani “never found a blank page to blossom, an invisible bouquet on her tombstone.” That’s rank nonsense.īaraka knew his own mind, but he had a knack for collaboration. It was always a high honor to print his work, especially his music writing. (Whenever I looked out from the steps of Grant’s Tomb at a Jazzmobile crowd reading the newspaper as they waited on a band, I thanked Baraka in my head.) When First morphed into an online journal and Annual volume, he rode with us. His byline gave First one key to blues people. (See the About node on our homepage for more on that.) He contributed to our first First and to every issue of our tabloid. While there’s nothing official about this tribute, everyone who contributed hopes it might serve as a comfort and/or calmative to Baraka’s wife Amina and his sons and daughters.īaraka was a brick for the bunch who started First of the Month and he played a heavy role in the back story of our newspaper. What follows are remembrances of Amiri Baraka by Sam Abrams, Ammiel Alcalay, Asha Bandele, Julian Bond, Wesley Brown, Benj DeMott, Tom DeMott, Diane di Prima, Bongani Madondo, Richard Meltzer, Jeremy Pikser, Connor Tomas Reed, Aram Saroyan, Robert Farris Thompson & Richard Torres.

Amiri baraka daughter murdered