Amiri Baraka, formally known as Everett LeRoi Jones is best known as a literary genius whose works challenged the status quo, European beauty standards, the insidiousness of the US government, and not only that. Baraka was a leading force in the arts movement of the 1960s and 1970s. In 1963 he published Blues People: Negro Music in White America, Ryan Cooler references this book as one he studied for his recent film Sinners, you’ll find it published under Leroi Jones. Nikki Giovanni speaks about him candidly for they are peers. That book was known as the first major history of black music to be written by an African American. A year later he published a collection of poetry titled The Dead Lecturer and won an Obie Award for his play, Dutchman. After the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965 he moved to Harlem and founded the Black Arts Repertory Theater. In the late 1960s, Baraka moved back to his hometown of Newark and began focusing more on political organizing, prompting the FBI to identify him as "the person who will probably emerge as the leader of the pan-African movement in the United States." Baraka continued writing and performing poetry up until his hospitalization, leaving behind a body of work that greatly influenced a younger generation of hip-hop artists and slam poets.