Ellen McLarney

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, prominent figures in the Black Arts Movement (BAM) converted to Islam and adopted new names. Poets such as Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Askia Muhammad Touré, and Marvin X incorporated Islamic words and expressions, references to the Qur'an, and Arabic script, as well as symbols like the crescent star and depictions of Islamic architecture...