Baker was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, which he later described as "racist" and "stultifying". The racism and violence he says he experienced as a youth would later prompt him to conclude "I had been discriminated against and called 'Nigger' enough to think that what America needed was a good Black Revolution." He recently revised such a summary judgment in his book combining memoir and critique titled I Don't Hate the South (Oxford University Press, 2007). His academic career initially progressed along traditional lines. He earned a B.A. in English literature from Howard University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Victorian literature from the University of California. He began teaching at Yale University and intended to write a biography of Oscar Wilde.

Holding "an exceedingly pessimistic view of American social progress where race is concerned," Baker has written numerous books on African Americans in modern American society. In his book Turning South Again: Rethinking Modernism/Rereading Booker T, he suggests that being a black American, even a successful one, amounts to a kind of prison sentence.

Baker also harshly criticized US President Barack Obama's widely praised race-centered speech ("A More Perfect Union") stemming from controversial remarks given by his pastor: "Sen. Obama's 'race speech' at the National Constitution Center, draped in American flags, was reminiscent of the Parthenon concluding scene of Robert Altman's Nashville: a bizarre moment of mimicry, aping Martin Luther King Jr., while even further distancing himself from the real, economic, religious and political issues so courageously articulated by King from a Birmingham jail. In brief, Obama's speech was a pandering disaster that threw, once again, his pastor under the bus."

During the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case, Baker published an open letter calling for Duke to dismiss the team and its players. Baker wrote that "white, male, athletic privilege" was responsible for the alleged rape. Baker suggested that the Duke administration was "sweeping things under the rug." More generally, Baker's letter criticized colleges and universities for the "blind-eyeing of male athletes, veritably given license to rape, maraud, deploy hate speech, and feel proud of themselves in the bargain." Duke Provost Peter Lange responded to Baker's letter a few days later, criticizing Baker for prejudging the team based on their race and gender. Lange maintained that a rush to judgment would do little to remedy the deeper problems and that open letters such as Baker's do little to further the cause of justice .

In April 2007, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper dropped all charges and declared the three players innocent. Mike Nifong was found guilty of criminal misconduct and disbarred. The New York Times reported that afterwards, in an email exchange with a mother of one of the accused players, Baker refused to accept responsibility for his own actions, and insulted her as "quite sadly, mother of a 'farm animal.'"

Baker, Houston A. (1984). Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular Theory. University of Chicago Press.

Baker, Houston A. (1987). Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance. University of Chicago Press.

Baker, Houston A. (1993). Black Studies, Rap, and the Academy. University of Chicago Press.

Baker, Houston A. (2001). Turning South Again: Re-Thinking Modernism/Re-Reading Booker T. Duke University Press.