Blast From the Past with poet and playwright Amiri Baraka

Barrow-Murray, Barbara · November 7, 1974

In this clip "Blast From the Past" features an excerpt from a 1968 Say Brother interview with poet and playwright Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) at Tufts University. Baraka talks about the importance of African Americans trying to be Black as a means to raise themselves above the "filth of easy accommodation in the white world." Overall the program is composed of a variety of segments in magazine-style format. Segments include a mime performance by Halim Adbur Rashid (Fred Johnson), a poetry reading by Leah Fletcher (Langston Hughes' "American Heartbreak," "Impasse," and "A Dream Deferred," and Maya Angelou's "No Loser, No Weeper," "Letter to an Aspiring Junkie," and "They Went Home"), "Blast From the Past" with excerpts from 1968 Say Brother interviews with poet and playwright Amiri Baraka at Tufts University and comedian Bill Cosby, a musical performance by the four-person vocalist group Mystic Chain, "Information" on selecting a day care center, the "Community Calendar," and "Commentary" by Producer Marita Rivero on the difficulties musicians face. Directed by Conrad White.