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The Black Arts movement began in 1965 when Imamu Amin Baraka established

the Black Arts Repertory Theater in Harlem. After the assassination of Malcolm X, those

who embraced the Black Power movement fell into two groups: the Revolutionary

Nationalist, who represented the Black Panther Party, and the Cultural Nationalists. The

Cultural Nationalist called for the creation of poetry, novels, visual arts, and theater to

reflect pride in Black history and culture. This movement lead black artist to begin to

create Black art for Black people as a means to awaken black consciousness and achieve

liberation. Seen as one of the most important times in African-American literature,

African- Americans began publishing houses, magazines, journals and art institutions. It

lead to the creation of African-American studies programs within universities. Theatre

groups, poetry performances, music and dance were centered on this movement, African

Americans gained social and historical recognition in the area of literature and arts.

African Americans were able to educate others through different types of expressions and

media outlets about cultural differences. From the Black artist movement we are

introduced to writers like: Nikki Giovanni, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, and Archie

Shepp. Musicians like: The Last Poets and Gill Scott-Heron paved the way for a new

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cultural genre of music, Hip-Hop. During the Black Arts Movement black artist created a

new black aesthetic as well as redefined what how blacks in American viewed their

blackness. Writes, Musicians, publications, and dramatist used their Art form to embrace

black identity and spread cultural pride throughout the nation.

Writers

The artist of the Black Arts movement sought to create politically engaged work that

explored the African American cultural and historical experience and transformed the

way African Americans were portrayed in literature and the arts. Poetry was the genre

that saw the most expansion and growth at the time. Black Arts writers crafted a black

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voice that drew on African American vernacular, and songs incorporating jazz, the blues,

and other linguistic/rhythmic techniques.

Imamu Amin Baraka

Founder of the Black Arts movement, Imamu Amin Baraka was a notable poet

and writer of drama, essays and music criticism. In his essay “The Revolutionary

Theatre”, Baraka discussed the need for change in the literature world. The essay called

for a change in literature that will “show the insides of theses human, look into black

skulls.” Baraka saw it as a great time for artists to write about the black experience in

American, in a matter that promotes pride within the community.

Baraka's career spanned nearly 50 years, and his themes range from black liberation to

white racism. The poems that are most associated with him are "The Music: Reflection

on Jazz and Blues", "The Book of Monk", and "New Music, New Poetry", these works

draw on topics from the worlds of society, music, and literature. Baraka's poetry was

known for provoking negative reaction along with high praises. People have said his

work was an expression of violence, misogyny, homophobia, and racism while some

compare Baraka to James Baldwin and praised him as one of the most respected and most

widely published black writers of his generation. He received negative attention from

critics and politicians for his public reading of his poem “Somebody Blew Up America.”

Regardless of viewpoint, Baraka's plays, poetry, and essays have been defining texts for

African-American culture.

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Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni is one of the most notable writers of the Black Arts movement, she is an

American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. Her work includes poetry

anthologies, poetry recordings, and nonfiction essays, and covers topics ranging from

race and social issues to children's literature. Her work provides a strong, militant

African-American perspective, as the Civil Rights and Black Panther movement

influenced her. Giovanni helped to define the African American voice of the 1960’s, 70’s

and beyond, which lead to her being, dub the "Poet of the Black Revolution." Throughout

the years, her works discussed social issues, human relationships, and hip-hop. She

embraced many of the artists of the hip-hop community, she viewed hip-hop lyrics as

inspiring and reflection a modern day civil rights movement. Her poems such as

"Knoxville, Tennessee," and "Nikki-Rosa" have been frequently re-published in

anthologies and other collections. Giovanni’s poems encouraged both black solidarity

and revolutionary action

Nikki Giovanni Imamu Baraka

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Visual Arts

The Black Arts Movement urged the reinforcement of such mantras as “Black is

beautiful” and James Brown’s “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” in the form of a

recognizable iconography. For example, fashion designer Jae Jarrell created Urban Wall

Suit (1969), a multicolored suit crafted to appear as a graffiti-covered brick wall and a

walking sign of the public voice. Iconic images of activists such as Bob Marley, Angela

Davis, and Malcolm X heavily influenced art and popular culture during this time.

Symbols like the raised fist, Afro hairstyle, and vivid graphic patterns were inspired by;

African art and textiles. Many black artist were inspired by the Blacks Arts movement

and began to create works of arts inspired by Black culture and resistance.

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Jae Jarrell

Artist Jae Jarrell was best known for her fashion designs and her involvement with The

Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. Her goal was to produce garments that inspired

pride, power energy and respect in African American communities. Influenced by her

grandfather’s work as a tailor, Jarrell learned about fabrics and sewing at a young age.

In 1968, Jae Jarrell, along with Wadsworth Jarrell, Jeff Donaldson, Barbara Jones-Hogu,

and Gerald Williams, founded AfriCOBRA, the African Commune of Bad Relevant

Artists. AfriCOBRA artists strived to provide positive representation of the African

diaspora, work that sought to invoke the styles of African art while infusing a strong call

for revolution. Jarrell aimed to use her art to build positive learning community that

promoted Black pride, “we made an effort to raise a consciousness,.. I saw a result of our

raising the consciousness, particularly about our history.” Using the body as a canvas for

revolution and identity, Jarrell made unique garments that brought attention to social

issues. Her design the Revolutionary Suit is a two-piece suit that has Jarrell’s signature

style form the late 60’s. The suit is a collarless tweet jacket and a-framed skirt. This piece

was inspired by the idea of wearing clothing for protest and revolution. Following one of

the themes of Africobra, which emphasized the Black Family, Jarrell made another suit

called Ebony Family. It was meant to be a symbol of the power within strong black

families. The use of bright colors showed an influenced of African Art, the suit was

crafted like a poster that takes form as a dashiki. The suit depicts a colorful, Black

Family, using African masks to create their faces. One of Jarrell’s most famous pieces

was her “Urban Wall Suit”, an piece inspired by graffiti and concert posters that filled the

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streets in black neighborhoods in Chicago. Jarrell wanted the suit to be a message board

to the community; all over the suit there are images of posters that say “Vote Democrat”

and “Black Princess.”

Art Smith

Art Smith was the only Afro-Caribbean modernist jeweler of the mid-20th century.

Smith's jewelry was inspired by surrealism, biomorphicism, and primitivism. Many of

Smiths pieces were influenced by the style of avant-garde dancers. His pieces were often

dynamic in size and form. Of his own work, he said: “A piece of jewelry is in a sense an

object that is not complete in itself. Jewelry is a ‘what is it?’ until you relate it to the

body. The body is a component in design just as air and space are. Like line, form, and

color, the body is a material to work with. It is one of the basic inspirations in creating

form.” An important early influence for Smith was Tally Beatty, a young black dancer

and choreographer. Beatty introduced Smith to the dance world, where he became

acquainted with some of the city’s leading black artist including James Baldwin, and

composer/pianist Billy Strayhorn. Designing for several black avant-garde dance

companies encouraged him to design on a grander scale than what he had in the past. By

the 1950’s Art Smith experienced huge success, his unique jewelry designs were featured

in Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and The New Yorker. As one of the first Black major

modernist Jewelers, his success was a reflection of the Black Arts movement effort in

supporting the success of Black artist.

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Art Smith Jae Jarrell

Music

Imamu Baraka argued that jazz had a “divine and otherworldly purpose, but

translates into the human experience as being inherently political.” Baraka’s

saw art as being intrinsically tied to the social circumstances of people traced

back to Africa. Seeing that the history of the Black community was often

manifested into music, Baraka describes the relationship to music and culture

as a reflection of our society. Baraka referred to the Blues as our national

consciousness “When we say blue now, we think of sadness in history, but

also the there’s a touch of beauty in that.”

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The Last Poets

The Last Poets arrived during a time where artists openly borrowed and

sampled works from each other. Baraka and the Black Arts Movement’s work

was an inspiration for the group of young artist, who called themselves the

Last Poets. Bin Hassan, Abiodun Oyewole, Jala Mansur Nuriddin, and

percussionist Nilaja Obabi self-titled album The Last Poets set the blueprint

to modern day rap. The use of repetition, literary devices, and tone

manipulation are obvious precursors to early day hip-hop. The Last Poets left

a statement of cultural validation that helped breed hip-hop and allow it to

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thrive in an era were black musicians were struggling to voice community

issues. The group of poets originated out of the civil rights movement and

focused on the black re-awakening, their music reflected racism, poverty, and

other concerns of African-Americans. The legacy of the Black Arts

Movement is in the embedded in hip-hop as an arts culture, and rap as a

medium. The quality and essence of Black music will continue to live on so

long as there is music in our country no matter in what form.

Gill Scott-Heron

Gill Scott was a jazz poet and soul musician, known as the Godfather of rap;

he utilized the platform of the stage and his deep resonating voice to create

anecdotes and parables into performance. He became one of the most

enduring poets using no nonsense street adlibbing; interaction with the

audience, and vocal delivery, all that which helped set the standard for early

rap. Inspired by the work of Imamu Baraka, he became instrumental in

establishing political rap due the political consciousness in his work. His

song “Message to the Messengers” called upon future generations of rap

artist and poets to speak for change rather than perpetuate current social

situations. Scott-Heron’s lyrics included themes such as mass consumerism

white America’s ignorance, and hypocrisy of black revolutionaries. His lyrics

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became songs of protest, his critically acclaimed composition, “The

Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, became a popular slogan among the

Black Power movement.

The Last Poets Gill Scott-Heron

Theater

Baraka founded the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/ School (BARTS), in Harlem; its

mission was to take music, poetry, art, and performance out of the academy and into the

street. BARTS launched the Black Arts Movement, one of the most important literary

movements in the US. Imamu Baraka’s Award winning play, Dutchman, brought

a new dynamic to theater, blurring the lines between the spectator and

spectacle. As a speaker or performer, his tactic of inviting the audience to

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become part of the performance was a technique that Baraka helped

popularize, and has now became deeply entrenched in hip-hop culture. Black

theaters served as the focus of poetry, dance, and music performances in addition to

formal and ritual drama. Black theaters were also venues for community meetings,

lectures, study groups, and film screenings. The summer of 1968 issue of Drama

Review, a special on Black theater edited by Ed Bullins, became a Black Arts textbook

that featured essays and plays by most of the major movers: Larry Neal, Ben Caldwell,

LeRoi Jones, Jimmy Garrett, John and Adam David Miller. Black Arts Theater proudly

emphasized its activist roots and boasted its distinct contradiction to traditional theaters.

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By 1970 Black Arts theaters and cultural centers were active throughout

America. The New Lafayette Theatre and Barbara Ann Teer's National Black Theatre

lead the way in New York, Baraka's Spirit House Movers resided in Newark and traveled

up and down the East Coast. The Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC) and

Val Grey Ward's Kuumba Theatre Company were leading forces in Chicago, made up of

writers, artists, and musicians including the OBAC visual artist collective whose "Wall of

Respect" inspired the national community-based public murals movement and led to the

formation of Afri-Cobra (the African Commune of Bad, Revolutionary Artists). There

was David Rambeau's Concept East and Ron Milner and Woodie King’s Black Arts

Midwest, both based in Detroit. Ron Milner became the Black Arts movement's most

enduring playwright and Woodie King became its leading theater impresario when he

moved to New York City. In Los Angeles there was the Ebony Showcase, Inner City

Repertory Company, and the Performing Arts Society of Los Angeles (PALSA) led by

Vantile Whitfield. In San Francisco was the aforementioned Black Arts West.

BLKARTSOUTH (led by Tom Dent and Kalamu ya Salaam) was an outgrowth of the

Free Southern Theatre in New Orleans and was instrumental in encouraging Black theater

development across the south from the Theatre of Afro Arts in Miami, Florida, to Sudan

Arts Southwest in Houston, Texas, through an organization called the Southern Black

Cultural Alliance. In addition to formal Black theater repertory companies in numerous

other cities, there were literally hundreds of Black Arts community and campus theater

groups.

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Publications

Black publications allowed for the expansion of the Black Arts Movement by spreading

the work of Black artist coast to coast. A major reason for the widespread dissemination

and adoption of Black Arts was the development of nationally distributed magazines that

printed manifestos and critiques in addition to offering publishing opportunities for a

proliferation of young writers. Most literary expressions rejected Black Arts writers,

whether they were establishment or independent. New York-based

publications Freedomways and Liberator became the movement’s first literary

expressions, in the early 1960’s. Freedomways, "a journal of the Freedom Movement,"

was receptive to young Black writers. Dan Watts's Liberator, was extremely important to

the movements as it openly aligned itself with both domestic and international

revolutionary movements. Many of the early writings of critical Black Arts voices are

found in Liberator.

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The first major Black Arts literary publication was the California-based Black Dialogue ,

Black Dialogue was paralleled by Soulbook. Oakland-based Soulbook was mainly

politica,l but included poetry in a section ironically titled "Reject Notes."

Affects of BAM

Instead of creating work that encouraged white America to look upon African Americans

more positively, Black Arts Movement artist were interested in improving black

Americans’ perception of themselves. It was belief that African Americans and black

people living abroad would never be liberated from a racist society if they did not first

address internalized inferiority. Advancing African American liberation through self-

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determinacy and in time Black Nationalism, the “Black Power Concept” directed African

Americans to separate from mainstreams society to determine “who are black people,

what are black people, and what is their relationship to America and the rest of the

world.”

Black Arts Movement (BAM) artist created a black aesthetic to distinguish black culture,

in effort the help the African American community perceive itself as Black. By the

1960’s black was not only defined as beautiful, but also took pride in the legacy of

African American achievement and uplifting of the black community. They defined

Black art as cultural productions that established Black Power; the black aesthetic was

intended to advance the liberation of African American self-perception, black people

seeing themselves and their world “in terms of their own realities.”

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References

Web Sources

1. Salaam, Kaluma. "Historical Overviews of the Black Arts Movement." N.p., n.d. Web.

17 May 1995.

2. Giovanni, Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" (1943- ) | The Black Past: Remembered and

Reclaimed. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2017

3. Oppenheim, Lisa. "Visual Arts in the Black Arts Movement Resource

Page."ChicagoHistoryFair.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2017.

4. "The Black Arts Movement (BAM)." Aalbc.com: African American Literature Book

Club. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2017.

5. "The Black Arts Movement (BAM)." Aalbc.com: African American Literature Book

Club. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2017.

Journals

6. "�Set Your Blackness Free�: Barbara Ann Teer's Art and Activism during the

Black Arts Movement." Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 36.1 (2015): 136-59.

Web.

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7. Hanson, Michael. "Suppose James Brown Read Fanon: The Black Arts Movement,

Cultural Nationalism and the Failure of Popular Musical Praxis." Popular Music 27.3

(2008): 341-65. JSTOR. Web.

8. Crawford, Margo Natalie. "Baraka�s Jam Session: On the Limits of Any Attempt

to Collect Black Aesthetics Unbound." Callaloo 37.3 (2014): 477-79. Web.

9..Imamu Amin Baraka, “Revolutionary Theatre." (1994): n. pag. Web.

10. Karenga, Maulana. "Black Studies." Encyclopedia of Black Studies (n.d.): n. pag.

Web.

Books

11. Salaam, Kalamu Ya. The Magic of Juju: An Appreciation of the Black Arts

Movement. Chicago: Third World, 2016. Print.

12. Elam, Harry Justin. African-American Performance and Theater History: A Critical

Reader. New York: Oxford UP, 2015. Print.