Amiri Baraka (formerly known as LeRoi Jones)

Amiri Baraka was an African-American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at several universities, including the State University of New York at Buffalo and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He received the PEN/Beyond Margins Award, in 2008 for Tales of the Out and the Gone.

Baraka was born Everett LeRoi Jones and wrote under the name LeRoi Jones after the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965.