We Want a Black Poem

Let there be no love poems written
until love can exist freely and
cleanly. Let Black People understand
that they are the lovers and the sons
of lovers and warriors and sons
of warriors Are poems & poets &
all the loveliness here in the world

We want a black poem. And a
Black World.
Let the world be a Black Poem
And Let All Black People Speak This Poem
Silently
or LOUD.
—LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), from “Black Art” (1966)

From the Hotel Theresa in Harlem, I crossed Seventh Avenue to the restaurant where I would bathe myself in the cuisine of the slave: grits and scrambled eggs, Canadian bacon, hash browns, and innumerable cups of coffee, which in the sixties, was extremely strong and real and fine, anticipating the special coffee shops you get in upper-class neighbourhoods today; and from the restaurant, I walked to the office of the New York Amsterdam News. Here I knew I would get help in locating James Baldwin, who was after all the reason for my being in Harlem. Somebody in the editorial department must know how to find Jimmy. I had already scoured the Red Rooster, day and night, from the previous Saturday.

The man who would provide this information was the most unlikely one on the entire newspaper staff. He was probably also, apart from the office cleaner, the lowest paid. He was the telephone operator. The man every person who called in had to talk to. The man who listened to every call: protest, complaint, congratulations, and as an extracurricular activity, a bonus on the monotony of saying, “Good morning, the Amsterdam News!,” and, when it was proper, “. . . and power to the people, Brother!,” making a date with a voice he speculated belonged to a body “built by Fisher,” a woman who might turn out to be “foxy.” Fred.