"Most people in pain yes the pain and pain today, WOW it must be the devil...it ain't capitalism no it ain't that, Jimmy Carter wouldn't lie."

Amiri Baraka reads from his poem “Dope,” which reflects life in the ghetto and receives a welcoming celebration from the Black Studies Department of his return to SF State.

Baraka was last at SF State 20 years ago and nearly 40 years have gone by since the 1968 strike at SF State where Baraka was a vital participant in leading the students involved in the strike.

Baraka came to SF State Nov. 8 to discuss art and the power it has to educate students. He also discussed the strike, which led to the first Black Studies Department at a four-year-college followed by the funding of a department of Ethnic Studies and how it paved the way for students today.

“He was the father of our culture that gave enlightenment to our minds,” said Benny Stewart, who was the BSU Chairman during the strike.

According to his Web site, Baraka, a Newark, New Jersey native, is the author of over 40 books of essays, poems, drama and music history and criticism, a poet icon and revolutionary political activist. He has recited poetry and lectured on cultural and political issues extensively in America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. He has taught at Yale, Columbia, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Jimmy Garrett was responsible for getting Baraka to come to SF State in 1967 and he also played a major part in changing the name of the Negro Students Association to the Black Students Union (BSU). According to Garrett, the strike was about creating conditions where young black people participated in and sometimes dominated intellectual debates for the benefit of the people.

“We wanted to create something that our grandkids could partake in 40 years later,” said Baraka, “because what we did 40 years ago ain’t shit unless you (students) do something.”

In November of 1968, the longest campus strike in the nation's history took place on SF State. The opposition between black students and white racism on campus created an awareness among black students of the need for black Studies courses that could serve as a counter to white value and white attitudinal courses. Black Studies courses were needed to create counter images to those white value-oriented courses, while providing a rigorous intellectual curriculum rooted in the black cultural, political, economic, literary, social, psychological, and historical reality.

During the strike students were jailed and received police brutality. The Black Students Union gained control of the Tutorial program, placing 250 Black students into tutorial positions previously held by white students and on March 21, 1969, the strike officially comes to an end and the School of Ethnic Studies and the Department of Black Studies is created.

Baraka’s generation, which was compromised of students who were involved in the strike, were called “Malcolm’s children” because of their radical ways. According to Baraka, the highest form of art is education. Education has to stimulate peoples’ minds, art is a way of acting and to get people involved and Baraka came to SF State at a time when black arts was spreading.

“I wanted to make art that would fight for the people,” said Baraka, “if you’re an artist and you’re not doing anything for anyone but yourself, it doesn’t mean anything, you and yourself can go somewhere, it’s the people who matter.”

Baraka lives in Newark with his wife and author Amina Baraka. His awards and honors include an Obie, the American Academy of Arts & Letters award, the James Weldon Johnson Medal for contributions to the arts, Rockefeller Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts grants, Professor Emeritus at the State university of New York at Stony Brook, and the Poet Laureate of New Jersey.

“This is a brother who is one of the most gifted people this country has produced,” said Oba T’shaka, a professor in the Black Studies Department, “he’s a beautiful brother.”