Black Arts Movement

By: Julius Thompson

Source:

 Black Women in America, Second Edition

Black Arts Movement

The term Black Arts Movement refers to the historical period between 1960 and 1975 when African American writers, artists, educators, and intellectuals attempted to redefine black cultural identity in the United States by emphasizing the black aesthetic. Participants in the movement viewed the black aesthetic as a serious effort to produce literature or works of art and advance black cultural life through a system of beliefs and theories based on the political, economic, social, and cultural history of blacks. A central goal of the movement was to promote the creativity of black artists to the African American community while basing their interpretations of the black experience on an aesthetic observed from this same experience.

During the twentieth century, two important African American artistic movements evolved within the United States. The first, the Harlem or Black Renaissance, was followed by the Black Arts Movement. Each brought a tremendous outpouring of artistic production in the black community, an explosion of black music, a major focus on reinterpreting black American and African history, and an increase in the number and variety of black presses and publishing efforts to promote black literature, scholarship, and information with a focus on the black world.

Black writers were especially important to both movements, with most of the published work produced by poets, novelists, playwrights, and critics. In the 1920s, among the outstanding women writers of the Black Renaissance were Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Anne Spencer, Katherine Durham, Ira Reid, Angelina Weld Grimké, May Miller, and Alice Dunbar-Nelson. During the decade and a half of the Black Arts Movement, major black women figures were Gwendolyn Brooks, Margaret Walker, Margaret Danner, Mari Evans, Audre Lorde, Naomi L. Madgett, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Carolyn Rodgers, and Alice Walker.

Collectively, the writers of both periods helped to create a unique historical and cultural outlook among black Americans. They also greatly influenced black life during the twentieth century by focusing African Americans' attention on literacy, social well-being through a greater appreciation of the arts and literature; the promotion, protection, and production of black artifacts; and the relationship between the historical struggle for civil and human rights, from one generation to the next.

The Black Arts Movement produced thousands of publications in the 1960s and 1970s. Black publishing companies and a black press arose to fulfill the need. Five American cities were especially important in promoting and producing the works of movement participants. In New York City, notable publishers included Black Dialogue Press (1965) and the periodicals Crisis (founded in 1910), Freedomways (1961), Liberator (1961), Black Theatre (1968), Black Creation (1970), and Third Press (1970). Leading journals such as Freedomways and Black Creation were known for important essays that analyzed the black freedom movement, while also publishing established writers such as Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks and younger artists of the period such as Alice Walker and Nikki Giovanni. Chicago was the second most important city, the home of presses and publishers including Black Books Bulletin (1971), Chicago Defender (1905), College Peoples Press (1972), Du Sable Museum Press (1971), Johnson Publishing Company (1945), Negro Digest (1942), and Third World Press (1967). Negro Digest, later renamed Black World, was one of the most important journals of the movement. The works of thousands of black writers, old and young, appeared on its pages during the 1960s and 1970s. Under the leadership of Hoyt W. Fuller and Carole Parks, this journal reached all parts of the black world. A third important center was Los Angeles, the home of Black Panther (1970), Black Scholar (1967), Journal of Black Poetry (1967), Journal of Black Studies (1970), Los Angeles Sentinel (1934), and Yardbird Press (1972). A fourth center was Detroit, where Black Arts Magazine (1971), Broadside Press (1965), Lotus Press (1972), and the Michigan Chronicle (1936) were located.

Finally, Washington, DC, was also a hub for of the Black Arts Movement. Afro-American (1933), Associated Publishers (1937), Drum and Spear Press (1969), Howard University Press (1972), Negro History Bulletin (1937), and the Journal of Negro Education (1931) were all located in Washington. These black organizations and companies helped to greatly increase the national demand for poetry, novels, short stories, plays, nonfiction works, criticism, and journalism on the literary and social productions, directions, and challenges of the Black Arts Movement.

Black artists were major contributors to black publishers of the Black Arts Movement with their designs and illustrations. For example, the contributions of black artists to Broadside Press in Detroit included Jeff Donaldson's frontispiece of Gwendolyn Brooks's Riot, Stephany Fuller's cover and illustrations for her book, Moving Deep (1969), and Shirley Woodson's design for Broadside #1 and #2 of “Birmingham” and “Dressed All in Pink” (1965), illustrations based on the of poetry by Dudley Randall.

Music and Beyond

Black music also helped to raise black consciousness and to stress black unity and uplift for the black community. Songs of the Freedom Movement were especially influential; these included “We Shall Overcome,” “We Shall Not Be Moved,” “Ballad of the Student Sit-Ins,” “Freedom's Comin' and It Won't Be Long,” among many others. Traditional black jazz, rhythm and blues, and folk art also contributed to the movement. Nina Simone (1933–2003) was an important influence on the civil rights movement and American culture in general with her outstanding contributions, such as “Mississippi Goddamn,” a song dedicated to the struggle for equality.

Black designers of hair and clothing also had a tremendous influence on black everyday life in the 1960s and 1970s, two decades of impressive and influential hair and clothing designs. Many black men and women adopted a natural hairstyle, eschewing the straightened hairstyles sometimes favored by those who sought to assimilate.

Black educators, another subgroup of the movement, had their most important influence on the black studies movement. Black Studies programs and departments grew steadily in the period and were much in demand by many black students, especially those at historically white institutions. Leaders of the black studies movement, such as Nathan Hare at San Francisco State University, the poets Sonia Sanchez and Nikki Giovanni, and the historian John Henrik Clarke at Hunter College, New York, helped to renew a black historical and literary consciousness and to promote a new scholarship which placed blacks at the center of their own history, past, present, and future.

The Black Arts Movement produced thousands of published poems, novels, short stories, essays, book reviews, reports, plays, radio scripts, television and film scripts, autobiographies and biographies, and scholarly studies in every discipline. The twenty Black Arts Movement artists of 1960–1975 who seem to have had the greatest literary influences with their creative works were Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, Margaret Walker, Etheridge Knight, Mari Evans, Haki R. Madhubuti, Nikki Giovanni, Eugene B. Redmond, June Jordan, Hoyt W. Fuller, Audre Lorde, Dudley Randall, Sonia Sanchez, Kalamu ya Salaam, Alice Walker, Ed Bullins, Lorraine Hansberry, Ishmael Reed, Toni Morrison, and Addison Gayle Jr. The work of black women figures of the movement is significant for offering contemporary readers a deep sense of the variety and richness of the perspectives, outlooks, and artistic issues of great concern to black women in twentieth-century America. Among the major black women writers of the movement, Gwendolyn Brooks and Margaret Walker represented leading voices of an older generation, still active in the 1960s and 1970s. Both were major poets and mentors to many other writers of the movement. Brooks lived in Chicago, Illinois, and produced a fine body of work. Her poetry collections were noted for capturing the urban experiences of black Americans and included A Street in Bronzeville (1945); Annie Allen (1949), which received the Pulitzer Prize, In the Mecca (1968); Riot (1969); and Family Pictures (1970). Margaret Walker spent thirty years of her career at Jackson State University, Mississippi, where she taught in the English department and developed the black studies program. Like Brooks, she sought to capture in poetry the complexity, richness, and folk experiences of African Americans in United States. Walker was most famous for her first book, For My People (1942), which won the Yale University Younger Poets' Award. Other poetry collections followed, such as Prophets for a New Day (1970), considered by many critics to be the most important poetic publication written about the civil rights movement, and October Journey (1973). Both Brooks and Walker also produced major novels during their careers. Brooks published Maud Martha (1953) and Walker Jubilee (1966). Brooks and Walker remained two of the best-loved poets of their generation.

Mari Evans was a noted black poet of the movement who worked out of Indianapolis, Indiana. Her poetry captured the new determination of black American women to free their contemporary voices and to be an active part of the movement for black liberation. Her best-known book, I Am A Black Woman (1970), was followed by Night Star, 1973–1978 (1981). She also produced works for younger readers and several plays.

Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez emerged during the movement as revolutionary black poets and as major contributors to the growth and development of Dudley Randall's Broadside Press. They greatly influenced the poets of their generation with a body of work that told the black woman's story in poetic form and demanded a place at the liberation table for black women and their interests. Giovanni was most noted for her poetry collections Black Feeling, Black Talk (1967), Black Judgment (1968), and Re: Creation (1970). An important later collection is My House (1972). Sanchez's work from the 1960s was greatly influenced by Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam. But, like Giovanni, she developed a powerful voice of her own in such books as Homecoming (1969), We a BaddDD People (1970), A Blue's Book for Blue Black Magical Women (1973), and Love Poems (1973).

The poets June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Alice Walker were also active in the movement. A New York City poet, June Jordan was national and international in her scope and widely published in the United States. Among her books were Who Look at Me (1969), Some Changes (1971), and New Day: Poems of Exile and Return (1974). Jordan sought to deal with oppression. Audre Lorde's poetry reflected a deep concern with feminist and gay rights issues. Her widely read books included The First Cities (1968), Cables to Rage (1970), From a Land Where Other People Live (1973), and The Black Unicorn (1978). Alice Walker brought to the poetry of the period a deep sentiment influenced by her upbringing in Georgia. She was also concerned with feminist issues and with advancing the cause of black women in the United States and abroad. She produced a number of important poetry collections, such as Once (1968), Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems (1971), and Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning (1979). Walker also emerged during the movement as a leading African American novelist with The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970) and Meridian (1976). A later novel, The Color Purple (1982), was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award. Her body of work sought to end the oppression of women in society.

Other black women writers in the Black Arts Movement deserve note: Lorraine Hansberry, a major playwright, and Toni Morrison, a major novelist. A native of Chicago, Hansberry achieved early fame for her play A Raisin in the Sun (1959), which became the first play by an African American women to be produced on Broadway and long remained a dominant presence on the American stage. Toni Morrison's novels provoked a strong reaction in the United States during the movement. She was especially concerned with examining the problem of racism in society and how the historical nature of gender and racial conflicts affect human identities. Her novels include The Bluest Eye (1969), Sula (1973), and Song of Solomon (1977). She received a major honor in 1993 when she won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first black woman to do so.

Legacy of the Black Arts Movement

African American cultural workers created a moving and important literary scene during the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The movement influenced every aspect of black American cultural life and was a significant component of black liberation and the struggle for economic, political, social, and cultural equality and uplift. Black writers, intellectuals, critics, artists, and educators sought to redefine the black literary condition through the black aesthetic, calling for radical approaches to writing about, understanding, and creating artistic works that drew directly upon the experiences and nature of black life in America, Africa, and other parts of the world.

Hundreds of black artists took part in the movement, but black poets were especially active. They left future generations an immense body of work that must be read and heard, in order to understand and fully appreciate their contributions. Black dramatists, novelists, short story writers, and artists as well as blacks in academic disciplines—history, sociology, black studies, and other fields—all made significant contributions. Such work greatly increased the range of data, creative materials, and sources available to those interested in learning about the black experience in modern America.

Like black men, black women made major contributions to the Black Arts Movement. Their special concerns and experiences helped to focus community attention on issues of racism, gender discrimination, and classism. Many were committed to overcoming the historical oppression of women and to working toward an equal status with males in society. They also emphasized the development of the entire black community: men, women, and children. The body of work produced by black women during the movement not only explored the perspectives of black women in the past and present but also examined possibilities for the future.

The Black Arts Movement was a watershed in modern black history. The contributions, roles, and outlook of its participants remained an influence on contemporary thought, artistic production, and other aspects of creative efforts of black America literary activities. The movement was a powerful effort by African Americans in the 1960s and 1970s to advance the creative thoughts, interests, and goals of the black community across time. The achievements of the Black Arts Movement serve as a guide and reference point for later artists and activists who seek to incorporate these values, outlooks, and theories into their lives, work, struggles for equality, understanding, and advancement in their own times.

See also Harlem Renaissance; specific women.

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