American poet Sonia Sanchez (born 1934) helped define the mid-twentieth century Black Arts Movement,using the language of the streets to write about the frustrations of Northern urban blacks. As an educator, she pioneered a black studies program at San Francisco State College (later became University).

We a BaddDDD People. The book introduces readers to Sanchez`s experimentation with language, typography, and punctuation. Influenced by African American leaders such as Malcolm X, Sanchez attempts to reproduce on the page the chanting rhythms of the black tradition of oratory and to empower her people by demonstrating the poetry of their speech. The book would be followed by A Blues Book for Blue Black Magical Women and Love Poems (both 1973) and I`ve Been a Woman: New and Selected Poems (1978