When Dutchman opened in 1964, white audiences hailed Baraka as the new black voice of the American theater. He had suddenly caught the public eye. Playboy magazine called him "the most discussed and admired-Negro writer Since James Baldwin." It was ironic that in calling whites to task for their racism, Baraka earned their admiration. Stephen Schneck explained in Ramparts that "The blasé New York culture scene was titillated by his maledictions. . . The more he attacked white society, the more white society patronized him. . . . The masochistic vein was a source of hitherto untapped appeal, big box office stuff, and LeRoi Jones was one of the very first to exploit It."

Baraka's fame landed him teaching positions at the State University of New York, Buffalo and Columbia University. Isabel Eberstadt, writing in the New York Herald Tribune, called him a "critic, a celebrity. . . a king of the lower...