Assignment Prompt & Instructions
attached
– ## BlackArtsResponse.docx
– ## AnIntroductiontotheBlackArtsMovement20-1.pdf
**## BlackArtsResponse.docx**
Black Arts Response
Humanities Black Art Response –
Scholars.. for this assignment …. you are going to look for art or even monuments on campus…at a museum.. paintings, art around town, at a church.. , etc
Locate artwork that you believe reflects the Black Experience.. (paintings, sculptures, statues, photograph by the artist… for example..Gordan Parks was a famous photographer and his work is considered art..etc)
OPTION B – If you are unable to physically go out on campus or in the community to seek out art… you may google….Black Art and still follow the instructions below.
INSTRUCTIONS
Do this assignment in a power point or keynote.. using seven or eight slides.. OR.. you do a video of YOURSELF, responding to the question below and actually showing the art that you selected.. . click Start Assignment to post
Slide 1 – Title page
Black Art Response… (your name HUMA course number and section)
Slide 2=Take a picture of a piece of art that speaks to you and post it in this slide (YES you can use more than one art piece if you like)
Slide 3 -Name of Artist and background info (if known)
Slide 4 Where this art is located? (on campus… downtown in which city… at a museum…if so which museum.. )
Slide 5 Description of art and what it represents to you
Slide 6 In what way do YOU believe this art is connected with , or influences the Black Experience and society as a whole?
Slide 7 – Explain how it connects with any of the black movements we have studied in this course (based on readings and videos).. PLEASE ELABORATE
Week 4- Black Arts/Black Power Movement
[An Introduction to the Black Arts Movement 20-1.pdf](https://wileyc.instructure.com/courses/9362/files/811262?wrap=1) [Download An Introduction to the Black Arts Movement 20-1.pdf](https://wileyc.instructure.com/courses/9362/files/811262/download?download_frd=1)
Article , please read
[https://youtu.be/0IhzbA6lHTQ?feature=sharedLinks to an external site.](https://youtu.be/0IhzbA6lHTQ?feature=shared)
Black Panther Party for Self Defense
Scholars, please read the article and watch this video and respond to questions by clicking START ASSIGNMENT. IN YOUR OWN WORDS… respond to the questions.. Please write in COMPLETE SENTENCES.
What was the Black Arts Movement and Who were 3 of the artist, what was their art form, from that era..
What are three significant things you learned from the article…and three significant things you learned from viewing this film?
What are some of the demands involved in the Black Panther Party?
What are some of the surprising details you learned from this film?
Describe the programs developed by the Black Panther Party and how they benefited Black people
What part did art, music, poetry, etc, play during the height of the Black Panther Party?
## image1.png
**## AnIntroductiontotheBlackArtsMovement20-1.pdf**
An Introduction to the Black Arts Movement
B Y N A S R U L L A H M A M B R O L ON J U L Y 9 , 2 0 2 0 • ( 0 )
The Black Arts movement was a controversial literary faction that
emerged in the mid-1960s as the artistic and aesthetic arm of the Black
Power movement, a militant political operation that rejected the
integrationist purposes and practices of the Civil Rights movement that
preceded it. The Black Arts movement was one of the only American
literary movements to merge art with a political agenda. Because poems
were short and could be recited at rallies and other political activities to
incite and move a crowd, poetry was the most popular literary genre of
the Black Arts movement, followed closely by drama. Poet, playwright,
activist, and major figure of the Black Arts movement, Amiri Baraka
(formerly LeRoi Jones) coined the term Black Arts when he established
his Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School in New York City’s Harlem.
Although the Black Arts movement began its decline during the mid-
1970s, at the same time as the Black Power movement began its descent,
it introduced a new breed of black poets and a new brand of black
poetry. It also inspired and energized already established poets like
Gwendolyn BROOKS and Robert Hayden. The Black Arts movement
created many poetic innovations in form, language, and style that have
influenced the work of many of today’s spoken word artists and socially
conscious rap lyricists.
[https://literariness.org/author/nasrullahmambrol/](https://literariness.org/author/nasrullahmambrol/)
[https://literariness.org/2020/07/09/an-introduction-to-the-black-arts-movement/](https://literariness.org/2020/07/09/an-introduction-to-the-black-arts-movement/)
[https://literariness.org/2020/07/09/an-introduction-to-the-black-arts-movement/#respond](https://literariness.org/2020/07/09/an-introduction-to-the-black-arts-movement/#respond)
The poets most often associated with the Black Arts movement include
Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Etheridge Knight, Nikki Giovanni, Larry Neal,
Mari Evans, Don L. Lee (now known as Haki Madhubutti), Carolyn
Rodgers, Marvin X, Jayne Cortez, Askia Toure, and June Jordan. A
number of important African-American playwrights, fiction writers, and
scholars also made significant contributions to the Black Arts
movement, creatively as well as philosophically and theoretically, by
defining and outlining the objectives and criteria of the movement and
its “black aesthetic.”
Several publishing houses and workshops were founded during the
period of the movement, and several magazines and journals emerged,
all of which provided a vehicle for the literary work of Black Arts poets.
Literary publications, such as Freedomways, Negro Digest (later
renamed Black World), the Black Scholar, the Journal of Black
Poetry, and Liberator, brought Black Arts movement poets to a larger
audience when more established publications rejected their work. Two
important publishing houses—Dudley Randall’s Broadside Press in
Detroit and Madhubuti’s Third World Press in Chicago—were also
instrumental in helping to introduce new poets and to disseminate their
work. Umbra Workshop (1962–65), composed of a group of black
writers, produced Umbra Magazine and gained significance as a literary
group that created a distinct voice and often challenged mainstream
standards concerning literature. Lastly, Baraka’s Black Arts Repertory
Theatre/School, founded in 1965, brought free plays, poetry readings,
and musical performances to the people of Harlem, thereby carrying out
the idea of art as a communal experience.
The Black Power movement, from which the Black Arts movement
derived, sought to empower African- American communities
economically and politically by relying solely on resources within the
black community. It also sought to celebrate blackness and restore
positive images of black people from the negative stereotyping that took
place in the larger society. Thus slogans, such as “Black Is Beautiful,”
were prominent during the time. Members of organizations, such as the
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), under the
leadership of Stokely Carmichael, and the Black Panther Party, founded
by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, demanded racial equality, not
through the methods of passive resistance associated with Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr., but “by any means necessary” (a slogan of the party),
including “violent revolution,” as stated by Malcolm X. Moreover,
“black cultural nationalism,” the belief that blacks and whites had two
separate worldviews and outlooks on life, was a prominent idea in both
the Black Power and the Black Arts movements. As a result, Black Arts
movement writers experimented with methods of artistic expression that
were characteristic of African-American culture and experience. First all
of the poetry was infused with a certain level of black consciousness,
meaning that its subjects and themes reflected the quality and character
of black experience. In form, Black Arts movement poets often rejected
standard English in favor of Black English, a more colloquial and
vernacular language and syntax. They peppered it with street slang and
idiomatic phrases that were simple, direct, explicit, and often irreverent.
In addition the poetry borrowed greatly from black music, using
rhythmical effects from jazz and blues, as well as from other forms of
black oral speech, such as sermons, folktales, signifying (an intricate,
humorous language style that uses indirection, innuendo, puns,
metaphors, and other wordplay to persuade, argue, send a message, or
insult), and the dozens (a form of signifying that involves trading insults,
primarily about a person’s relatives). Other common features of the
poetry include free verse, short line lengths, call-and-response patterns,
chanting, and free rhyming.
The Black Arts movement had much in common with another period of
increased artistic production among African-American writers—the
Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. During both periods, there was an
increased interest in establishing a more assertive black collective
identity than had previously existed (during the Harlem Renaissance, it
was called “the New Negro”) and in searching for ethnic identity and
heritage in folk and African culture. Thus poets from both periods
experimented with folk elements, such as blues, spirituals, and
vernacular idioms in their poetry, and venerated Africa. However,
despite these similarities, many Black Arts movement writers were
critical of the objectives of the Harlem Renaissance, believing it had
failed to link itself concretely to the struggle of the black masses.
Adherents of the Black Arts movement were also critical of Harlem
Renaissance writers’ reliance on white patronage, as well as their
tendency to esteem Western art, to desire mainstream recognition, and to
write with a white audience in mind. They felt that this compromised
black writers’ ability to be completely honest in their depiction and
expression of black life and struggle.
The Black Arts movement established a number of objectives and
criteria for its creative artists to follow. Primary among them was to
persuade African Americans to reject the mainstream culture and the
process of Americanization and assimilation, instead encouraging them
to embrace a “black aesthetic,” whereby black people would look to
their own culture and aesthetic values to create and evaluate African-
American literature. The three major criteria of the Black Arts
movement, established by Ron Karenga, were that all black art must be
“functional, collective, and committed” (33). The functional nature of
black art meant that the literary work must serve a purpose larger than
merely the creation of art. It had to be connected to the social and
political struggles in which African-American people were engaged. The
second criterion, that black art must be “collective,” meant that it must
serve the people; it must educate, inspire, and uplift them. Reciprocally,
the artist must learn from and be inspired and uplifted by the people. The
artist must be prepared to sacrifice her or his own individuality and,
instead, always write with the good of the people in mind. Third and
lastly, black art must be committed to political and social reform and
supportive of the revolution that will bring this about. In essence the
Black Arts movement’s objectives were to reach the masses of black
people, to make them understand their message of self-sufficiency and
dignity, and to inspire them to act upon it.
Many of the criteria and objectives of the Black Arts movement are
discernible within the poetry itself. For example, in “From the Egyptian”
in his 1966 collection Black Art, Baraka makes clear that violent
confrontation with the oppressors of black people is an imminent reality
as he asserts that he is prepared to murder “the enemies / of my father.”
Likewise, in “The True Import of Present Dialogue, Black vs. Negro”
in Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968), Giovanni tells black people: “We
ain’t got to prove we can die / We got to prove we can kill.” Giovanni
also demonstrates the criterion of commitment with “My Poem” (1968),
when she writes in support of the revolution and its enduring nature,
stating that “if i never do anything / it will go on.” The didacticism of
much Black Arts poetry is visible in Baraka’s “A School of Prayer”
(1966). In this poem, Baraka tells his black audience: “Do not obey their
laws.” “Their,” of course, refers to white society. Essentially Baraka
urges black people to rebel against white authority and be wary of the
words spoken by those who seek to oppress them because their purpose
is to deceive black people and curtail their advancement. The celebration
of blackness is also noticeable in Black Arts poetry. Sanchez, perhaps
the female poet most closely identified with the Black Arts movement,
reclaims the dignity of black womanhood in an unnamed poem in her
volume We a BaddDDD People (1970), when she links herself as a
black woman to a regal African queen who will, “Walk / move in / blk
queenly ways.” Similarly, in “Ka Ba” (1969), Baraka affirms the
uniqueness of black expressive culture and of black people, whom he
describes as “full of masks and dances and swelling chants / with
African eyes and noses and arms,” despite the present condition of
oppression and degradation under which many African Americans live.
In both of these poems, Sanchez and Baraka seek to restore to black
people a positive representation of blackness and raise their collective
sense of identity.
Many of the poems in Sanchez’s collection We a BaddDDD
People exemplify experimentation with language. In
“indianapolis/summer/1969/poem,” Sanchez provides a new spelling of
the words mothers (“mothas”), fathers (“fathas”), and sisters (sistuhs”);
the word about becomes “bout,” the word black becomes “blk,” and the
word I becomes “i.” The changes in spelling, as well as the use of
nonstandard English in Sanchez’s poems, are meant to capture the
syntax and vernacular speech of many within the black community,
while the abbreviated spelling of “blk” and the lower case “i” are part of
Sanchez’s refusal to adhere to the rules of standard English. Many Black
Arts poets perceived language to be a tool of the oppressor and therefore
sought ways to make it their own. Lastly, the use of pejorative
terminology and irreverent language was also common among Black
Arts poets. The police were often referred to as “pigs,” and white people
were termed “honkies” or “crackers.”
Several criticisms have been leveled against the Black Arts movement.
One was that it tended only to address issues of race and to promote
racial hatred. Also the functional aspect of the Black Arts movement
came to be denounced by newly emerging black literary critics who
claimed that the literature itself was often subordinate to the political or
social message of the movement. These critics saw this as detrimental to
black literature, creating a narrowness of focus that creatively limited the
artist and the kinds of literature he or she could compose. In addition
there was a tendency in the Black Arts movement to devise theories
prior to the creation of an actual body of literature that would prove the
theory. Therefore the literature was driven by the theory rather than the
other way around. Lastly, some Black Arts movement writers were
known to judge harshly any black writer who did not conform to the
criteria and objectives of the movement. Even black writers of the past
were not exempt from being maligned, and Black Arts movement
writers often did criticize them without always taking into consideration
the historical period and context in which these past writers were
composing their literature.
Still the Black Arts movement’s influence and contributions to
American poetry were far reaching. It made literary artists rethink the
function and purpose of their work and their responsibility to their
communities and to society. It also influenced and continues to inspire
new generations of poets to experiment with a variety of artistic forms to
refuse the pressure to conform to Western standards of art and to write,
embrace, and derive their art from within their own expressive culture
**## AnIntroductiontotheBlackArtsMovement20-1.pdf**
An Introduction to the Black Arts Movement
B Y N A S R U L L A H M A M B R O L ON J U L Y 9 , 2 0 2 0 • ( 0 )
The Black Arts movement was a controversial literary faction that
emerged in the mid-1960s as the artistic and aesthetic arm of the Black
Power movement, a militant political operation that rejected the
integrationist purposes and practices of the Civil Rights movement that
preceded it. The Black Arts movement was one of the only American
literary movements to merge art with a political agenda. Because poems
were short and could be recited at rallies and other political activities to
incite and move a crowd, poetry was the most popular literary genre of
the Black Arts movement, followed closely by drama. Poet, playwright,
activist, and major figure of the Black Arts movement, Amiri Baraka
(formerly LeRoi Jones) coined the term Black Arts when he established
his Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School in New York City’s Harlem.
Although the Black Arts movement began its decline during the mid-
1970s, at the same time as the Black Power movement began its descent,
it introduced a new breed of black poets and a new brand of black
poetry. It also inspired and energized already established poets like
Gwendolyn BROOKS and Robert Hayden. The Black Arts movement
created many poetic innovations in form, language, and style that have
influenced the work of many of today’s spoken word artists and socially
conscious rap lyricists.
[https://literariness.org/author/nasrullahmambrol/](https://literariness.org/author/nasrullahmambrol/)
[https://literariness.org/2020/07/09/an-introduction-to-the-black-arts-movement/](https://literariness.org/2020/07/09/an-introduction-to-the-black-arts-movement/)
[https://literariness.org/2020/07/09/an-introduction-to-the-black-arts-movement/#respond](https://literariness.org/2020/07/09/an-introduction-to-the-black-arts-movement/#respond)
The poets most often associated with the Black Arts movement include
Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Etheridge Knight, Nikki Giovanni, Larry Neal,
Mari Evans, Don L. Lee (now known as Haki Madhubutti), Carolyn
Rodgers, Marvin X, Jayne Cortez, Askia Toure, and June Jordan. A
number of important African-American playwrights, fiction writers, and
scholars also made significant contributions to the Black Arts
movement, creatively as well as philosophically and theoretically, by
defining and outlining the objectives and criteria of the movement and
its “black aesthetic.”
Several publishing houses and workshops were founded during the
period of the movement, and several magazines and journals emerged,
all of which provided a vehicle for the literary work of Black Arts poets.
Literary publications, such as Freedomways, Negro Digest (later
renamed Black World), the Black Scholar, the Journal of Black
Poetry, and Liberator, brought Black Arts movement poets to a larger
audience when more established publications rejected their work. Two
important publishing houses—Dudley Randall’s Broadside Press in
Detroit and Madhubuti’s Third World Press in Chicago—were also
instrumental in helping to introduce new poets and to disseminate their
work. Umbra Workshop (1962–65), composed of a group of black
writers, produced Umbra Magazine and gained significance as a literary
group that created a distinct voice and often challenged mainstream
standards concerning literature. Lastly, Baraka’s Black Arts Repertory
Theatre/School, founded in 1965, brought free plays, poetry readings,
and musical performances to the people of Harlem, thereby carrying out
the idea of art as a communal experience.
The Black Power movement, from which the Black Arts movement
derived, sought to empower African- American communities
economically and politically by relying solely on resources within the
black community. It also sought to celebrate blackness and restore
positive images of black people from the negative stereotyping that took
place in the larger society. Thus slogans, such as “Black Is Beautiful,”
were prominent during the time. Members of organizations, such as the
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), under the
leadership of Stokely Carmichael, and the Black Panther Party, founded
by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, demanded racial equality, not
through the methods of passive resistance associated with Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr., but “by any means necessary” (a slogan of the party),
including “violent revolution,” as stated by Malcolm X. Moreover,
“black cultural nationalism,” the belief that blacks and whites had two
separate worldviews and outlooks on life, was a prominent idea in both
the Black Power and the Black Arts movements. As a result, Black Arts
movement writers experimented with methods of artistic expression that
were characteristic of African-American culture and experience. First all
of the poetry was infused with a certain level of black consciousness,
meaning that its subjects and themes reflected the quality and character
of black experience. In form, Black Arts movement poets often rejected
standard English in favor of Black English, a more colloquial and
vernacular language and syntax. They peppered it with street slang and
idiomatic phrases that were simple, direct, explicit, and often irreverent.
In addition the poetry borrowed greatly from black music, using
rhythmical effects from jazz and blues, as well as from other forms of
black oral speech, such as sermons, folktales, signifying (an intricate,
humorous language style that uses indirection, innuendo, puns,
metaphors, and other wordplay to persuade, argue, send a message, or
insult), and the dozens (a form of signifying that involves trading insults,
primarily about a person’s relatives). Other common features of the
poetry include free verse, short line lengths, call-and-response patterns,
chanting, and free rhyming.
The Black Arts movement had much in common with another period of
increased artistic production among African-American writers—the
Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. During both periods, there was an
increased interest in establishing a more assertive black collective
identity than had previously existed (during the Harlem Renaissance, it
was called “the New Negro”) and in searching for ethnic identity and
heritage in folk and African culture. Thus poets from both periods
experimented with folk elements, such as blues, spirituals, and
vernacular idioms in their poetry, and venerated Africa. However,
despite these similarities, many Black Arts movement writers were
critical of the objectives of the Harlem Renaissance, believing it had
failed to link itself concretely to the struggle of the black masses.
Adherents of the Black Arts movement were also critical of Harlem
Renaissance writers’ reliance on white patronage, as well as their
tendency to esteem Western art, to desire mainstream recognition, and to
write with a white audience in mind. They felt that this compromised
black writers’ ability to be completely honest in their depiction and
expression of black life and struggle.
The Black Arts movement established a number of objectives and
criteria for its creative artists to follow. Primary among them was to
persuade African Americans to reject the mainstream culture and the
process of Americanization and assimilation, instead encouraging them
to embrace a “black aesthetic,” whereby black people would look to
their own culture and aesthetic values to create and evaluate African-
American literature. The three major criteria of the Black Arts
movement, established by Ron Karenga, were that all black art must be
“functional, collective, and committed” (33). The functional nature of
black art meant that the literary work must serve a purpose larger than
merely the creation of art. It had to be connected to the social and
political struggles in which African-American people were engaged. The
second criterion, that black art must be “collective,” meant that it must
serve the people; it must educate, inspire, and uplift them. Reciprocally,
the artist must learn from and be inspired and uplifted by the people. The
artist must be prepared to sacrifice her or his own individuality and,
instead, always write with the good of the people in mind. Third and
lastly, black art must be committed to political and social reform and
supportive of the revolution that will bring this about. In essence the
Black Arts movement’s objectives were to reach the masses of black
people, to make them understand their message of self-sufficiency and
dignity, and to inspire them to act upon it.
Many of the criteria and objectives of the Black Arts movement are
discernible within the poetry itself. For example, in “From the Egyptian”
in his 1966 collection Black Art, Baraka makes clear that violent
confrontation with the oppressors of black people is an imminent reality
as he asserts that he is prepared to murder “the enemies / of my father.”
Likewise, in “The True Import of Present Dialogue, Black vs. Negro”
in Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968), Giovanni tells black people: “We
ain’t got to prove we can die / We got to prove we can kill.” Giovanni
also demonstrates the criterion of commitment with “My Poem” (1968),
when she writes in support of the revolution and its enduring nature,
stating that “if i never do anything / it will go on.” The didacticism of
much Black Arts poetry is visible in Baraka’s “A School of Prayer”
(1966). In this poem, Baraka tells his black audience: “Do not obey their
laws.” “Their,” of course, refers to white society. Essentially Baraka
urges black people to rebel against white authority and be wary of the
words spoken by those who seek to oppress them because their purpose
is to deceive black people and curtail their advancement. The celebration
of blackness is also noticeable in Black Arts poetry. Sanchez, perhaps
the female poet most closely identified with the Black Arts movement,
reclaims the dignity of black womanhood in an unnamed poem in her
volume We a BaddDDD People (1970), when she links herself as a
black woman to a regal African queen who will, “Walk / move in / blk
queenly ways.” Similarly, in “Ka Ba” (1969), Baraka affirms the
uniqueness of black expressive culture and of black people, whom he
describes as “full of masks and dances and swelling chants / with
African eyes and noses and arms,” despite the present condition of
oppression and degradation under which many African Americans live.
In both of these poems, Sanchez and Baraka seek to restore to black
people a positive representation of blackness and raise their collective
sense of identity.
Many of the poems in Sanchez’s collection We a BaddDDD
People exemplify experimentation with language. In
“indianapolis/summer/1969/poem,” Sanchez provides a new spelling of
the words mothers (“mothas”), fathers (“fathas”), and sisters (sistuhs”);
the word about becomes “bout,” the word black becomes “blk,” and the
word I becomes “i.” The changes in spelling, as well as the use of
nonstandard English in Sanchez’s poems, are meant to capture the
syntax and vernacular speech of many within the black community,
while the abbreviated spelling of “blk” and the lower case “i” are part of
Sanchez’s refusal to adhere to the rules of standard English. Many Black
Arts poets perceived language to be a tool of the oppressor and therefore
sought ways to make it their own. Lastly, the use of pejorative
terminology and irreverent language was also common among Black
Arts poets. The police were often referred to as “pigs,” and white people
were termed “honkies” or “crackers.”
Several criticisms have been leveled against the Black Arts movement.
One was that it tended only to address issues of race and to promote
racial hatred. Also the functional aspect of the Black Arts movement
came to be denounced by newly emerging black literary critics who
claimed that the literature itself was often subordinate to the political or
social message of the movement. These critics saw this as detrimental to
black literature, creating a narrowness of focus that creatively limited the
artist and the kinds of literature he or she could compose. In addition
there was a tendency in the Black Arts movement to devise theories
prior to the creation of an actual body of literature that would prove the
theory. Therefore the literature was driven by the theory rather than the
other way around. Lastly, some Black Arts movement writers were
known to judge harshly any black writer who did not conform to the
criteria and objectives of the movement. Even black writers of the past
were not exempt from being maligned, and Black Arts movement
writers often did criticize them without always taking into consideration
the historical period and context in which these past writers were
composing their literature.
Still the Black Arts movement’s influence and contributions to
American poetry were far reaching. It made literary artists rethink the
function and purpose of their work and their responsibility to their
communities and to society. It also influenced and continues to inspire
new generations of poets to experiment with a variety of artistic forms to
refuse the pressure to conform to Western standards of art and to write,
embrace, and derive their art from within their own expressive culture
**## BlackArtsResponse.docx**
Black Arts Response
Humanities Black Art Response –
Scholars.. for this assignment …. you are going to look for art or even monuments on campus…at a museum.. paintings, art around town, at a church.. , etc
Locate artwork that you believe reflects the Black Experience.. (paintings, sculptures, statues, photograph by the artist… for example..Gordan Parks was a famous photographer and his work is considered art..etc)
OPTION B – If you are unable to physically go out on campus or in the community to seek out art… you may google….Black Art and still follow the instructions below.
INSTRUCTIONS
Do this assignment in a power point or keynote.. using seven or eight slides.. OR.. you do a video of YOURSELF, responding to the question below and actually showing the art that you selected.. . click Start Assignment to post
Slide 1 – Title page
Black Art Response… (your name HUMA course number and section)
Slide 2=Take a picture of a piece of art that speaks to you and post it in this slide (YES you can use more than one art piece if you like)
Slide 3 -Name of Artist and background info (if known)
Slide 4 Where this art is located? (on campus… downtown in which city… at a museum…if so which museum.. )
Slide 5 Description of art and what it represents to you
Slide 6 In what way do YOU believe this art is connected with , or influences the Black Experience and society as a whole?
Slide 7 – Explain how it connects with any of the black movements we have studied in this course (based on readings and videos).. PLEASE ELABORATE
Week 4- Black Arts/Black Power Movement
[An Introduction to the Black Arts Movement 20-1.pdf](https://wileyc.instructure.com/courses/9362/files/811262?wrap=1) [Download An Introduction to the Black Arts Movement 20-1.pdf](https://wileyc.instructure.com/courses/9362/files/811262/download?download_frd=1)
Article , please read
[https://youtu.be/0IhzbA6lHTQ?feature=sharedLinks to an external site.](https://youtu.be/0IhzbA6lHTQ?feature=shared)
Black Panther Party for Self Defense
Scholars, please read the article and watch this video and respond to questions by clicking START ASSIGNMENT. IN YOUR OWN WORDS… respond to the questions.. Please write in COMPLETE SENTENCES.
What was the Black Arts Movement and Who were 3 of the artist, what was their art form, from that era..
What are three significant things you learned from the article…and three significant things you learned from viewing this film?
What are some of the demands involved in the Black Panther Party?
What are some of the surprising details you learned from this film?
Describe the programs developed by the Black Panther Party and how they benefited Black people
What part did art, music, poetry, etc, play during the height of the Black Panther Party?
## image1.png
**## AnIntroductiontotheBlackArtsMovement20-1.pdf**
An Introduction to the Black Arts Movement
B Y N A S R U L L A H M A M B R O L ON J U L Y 9 , 2 0 2 0 • ( 0 )
The Black Arts movement was a controversial literary faction that
emerged in the mid-1960s as the artistic and aesthetic arm of the Black
Power movement, a militant political operation that rejected the
integrationist purposes and practices of the Civil Rights movement that
preceded it. The Black Arts movement was one of the only American
literary movements to merge art with a political agenda. Because poems
were short and could be recited at rallies and other political activities to
incite and move a crowd, poetry was the most popular literary genre of
the Black Arts movement, followed closely by drama. Poet, playwright,
activist, and major figure of the Black Arts movement, Amiri Baraka
(formerly LeRoi Jones) coined the term Black Arts when he established
his Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School in New York City’s Harlem.
Although the Black Arts movement began its decline during the mid-
1970s, at the same time as the Black Power movement began its descent,
it introduced a new breed of black poets and a new brand of black
poetry. It also inspired and energized already established poets like
Gwendolyn BROOKS and Robert Hayden. The Black Arts movement
created many poetic innovations in form, language, and style that have
influenced the work of many of today’s spoken word artists and socially
conscious rap lyricists.
[https://literariness.org/author/nasrullahmambrol/](https://literariness.org/author/nasrullahmambrol/)
[https://literariness.org/2020/07/09/an-introduction-to-the-black-arts-movement/](https://literariness.org/2020/07/09/an-introduction-to-the-black-arts-movement/)
[https://literariness.org/2020/07/09/an-introduction-to-the-black-arts-movement/#respond](https://literariness.org/2020/07/09/an-introduction-to-the-black-arts-movement/#respond)
The poets most often associated with the Black Arts movement include
Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Etheridge Knight, Nikki Giovanni, Larry Neal,
Mari Evans, Don L. Lee (now known as Haki Madhubutti), Carolyn
Rodgers, Marvin X, Jayne Cortez, Askia Toure, and June Jordan. A
number of important African-American playwrights, fiction writers, and
scholars also made significant contributions to the Black Arts
movement, creatively as well as philosophically and theoretically, by
defining and outlining the objectives and criteria of the movement and
its “black aesthetic.”
Several publishing houses and workshops were founded during the
period of the movement, and several magazines and journals emerged,
all of which provided a vehicle for the literary work of Black Arts poets.
Literary publications, such as Freedomways, Negro Digest (later
renamed Black World), the Black Scholar, the Journal of Black
Poetry, and Liberator, brought Black Arts movement poets to a larger
audience when more established publications rejected their work. Two
important publishing houses—Dudley Randall’s Broadside Press in
Detroit and Madhubuti’s Third World Press in Chicago—were also
instrumental in helping to introduce new poets and to disseminate their
work. Umbra Workshop (1962–65), composed of a group of black
writers, produced Umbra Magazine and gained significance as a literary
group that created a distinct voice and often challenged mainstream
standards concerning literature. Lastly, Baraka’s Black Arts Repertory
Theatre/School, founded in 1965, brought free plays, poetry readings,
and musical performances to the people of Harlem, thereby carrying out
the idea of art as a communal experience.
The Black Power movement, from which the Black Arts movement
derived, sought to empower African- American communities
economically and politically by relying solely on resources within the
black community. It also sought to celebrate blackness and restore
positive images of black people from the negative stereotyping that took
place in the larger society. Thus slogans, such as “Black Is Beautiful,”
were prominent during the time. Members of organizations, such as the
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), under the
leadership of Stokely Carmichael, and the Black Panther Party, founded
by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, demanded racial equality, not
through the methods of passive resistance associated with Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr., but “by any means necessary” (a slogan of the party),
including “violent revolution,” as stated by Malcolm X. Moreover,
“black cultural nationalism,” the belief that blacks and whites had two
separate worldviews and outlooks on life, was a prominent idea in both
the Black Power and the Black Arts movements. As a result, Black Arts
movement writers experimented with methods of artistic expression that
were characteristic of African-American culture and experience. First all
of the poetry was infused with a certain level of black consciousness,
meaning that its subjects and themes reflected the quality and character
of black experience. In form, Black Arts movement poets often rejected
standard English in favor of Black English, a more colloquial and
vernacular language and syntax. They peppered it with street slang and
idiomatic phrases that were simple, direct, explicit, and often irreverent.
In addition the poetry borrowed greatly from black music, using
rhythmical effects from jazz and blues, as well as from other forms of
black oral speech, such as sermons, folktales, signifying (an intricate,
humorous language style that uses indirection, innuendo, puns,
metaphors, and other wordplay to persuade, argue, send a message, or
insult), and the dozens (a form of signifying that involves trading insults,
primarily about a person’s relatives). Other common features of the
poetry include free verse, short line lengths, call-and-response patterns,
chanting, and free rhyming.
The Black Arts movement had much in common with another period of
increased artistic production among African-American writers—the
Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. During both periods, there was an
increased interest in establishing a more assertive black collective
identity than had previously existed (during the Harlem Renaissance, it
was called “the New Negro”) and in searching for ethnic identity and
heritage in folk and African culture. Thus poets from both periods
experimented with folk elements, such as blues, spirituals, and
vernacular idioms in their poetry, and venerated Africa. However,
despite these similarities, many Black Arts movement writers were
critical of the objectives of the Harlem Renaissance, believing it had
failed to link itself concretely to the struggle of the black masses.
Adherents of the Black Arts movement were also critical of Harlem
Renaissance writers’ reliance on white patronage, as well as their
tendency to esteem Western art, to desire mainstream recognition, and to
write with a white audience in mind. They felt that this compromised
black writers’ ability to be completely honest in their depiction and
expression of black life and struggle.
The Black Arts movement established a number of objectives and
criteria for its creative artists to follow. Primary among them was to
persuade African Americans to reject the mainstream culture and the
process of Americanization and assimilation, instead encouraging them
to embrace a “black aesthetic,” whereby black people would look to
their own culture and aesthetic values to create and evaluate African-
American literature. The three major criteria of the Black Arts
movement, established by Ron Karenga, were that all black art must be
“functional, collective, and committed” (33). The functional nature of
black art meant that the literary work must serve a purpose larger than
merely the creation of art. It had to be connected to the social and
political struggles in which African-American people were engaged. The
second criterion, that black art must be “collective,” meant that it must
serve the people; it must educate, inspire, and uplift them. Reciprocally,
the artist must learn from and be inspired and uplifted by the people. The
artist must be prepared to sacrifice her or his own individuality and,
instead, always write with the good of the people in mind. Third and
lastly, black art must be committed to political and social reform and
supportive of the revolution that will bring this about. In essence the
Black Arts movement’s objectives were to reach the masses of black
people, to make them understand their message of self-sufficiency and
dignity, and to inspire them to act upon it.
Many of the criteria and objectives of the Black Arts movement are
discernible within the poetry itself. For example, in “From the Egyptian”
in his 1966 collection Black Art, Baraka makes clear that violent
confrontation with the oppressors of black people is an imminent reality
as he asserts that he is prepared to murder “the enemies / of my father.”
Likewise, in “The True Import of Present Dialogue, Black vs. Negro”
in Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968), Giovanni tells black people: “We
ain’t got to prove we can die / We got to prove we can kill.” Giovanni
also demonstrates the criterion of commitment with “My Poem” (1968),
when she writes in support of the revolution and its enduring nature,
stating that “if i never do anything / it will go on.” The didacticism of
much Black Arts poetry is visible in Baraka’s “A School of Prayer”
(1966). In this poem, Baraka tells his black audience: “Do not obey their
laws.” “Their,” of course, refers to white society. Essentially Baraka
urges black people to rebel against white authority and be wary of the
words spoken by those who seek to oppress them because their purpose
is to deceive black people and curtail their advancement. The celebration
of blackness is also noticeable in Black Arts poetry. Sanchez, perhaps
the female poet most closely identified with the Black Arts movement,
reclaims the dignity of black womanhood in an unnamed poem in her
volume We a BaddDDD People (1970), when she links herself as a
black woman to a regal African queen who will, “Walk / move in / blk
queenly ways.” Similarly, in “Ka Ba” (1969), Baraka affirms the
uniqueness of black expressive culture and of black people, whom he
describes as “full of masks and dances and swelling chants / with
African eyes and noses and arms,” despite the present condition of
oppression and degradation under which many African Americans live.
In both of these poems, Sanchez and Baraka seek to restore to black
people a positive representation of blackness and raise their collective
sense of identity.
Many of the poems in Sanchez’s collection We a BaddDDD
People exemplify experimentation with language. In
“indianapolis/summer/1969/poem,” Sanchez provides a new spelling of
the words mothers (“mothas”), fathers (“fathas”), and sisters (sistuhs”);
the word about becomes “bout,” the word black becomes “blk,” and the
word I becomes “i.” The changes in spelling, as well as the use of
nonstandard English in Sanchez’s poems, are meant to capture the
syntax and vernacular speech of many within the black community,
while the abbreviated spelling of “blk” and the lower case “i” are part of
Sanchez’s refusal to adhere to the rules of standard English. Many Black
Arts poets perceived language to be a tool of the oppressor and therefore
sought ways to make it their own. Lastly, the use of pejorative
terminology and irreverent language was also common among Black
Arts poets. The police were often referred to as “pigs,” and white people
were termed “honkies” or “crackers.”
Several criticisms have been leveled against the Black Arts movement.
One was that it tended only to address issues of race and to promote
racial hatred. Also the functional aspect of the Black Arts movement
came to be denounced by newly emerging black literary critics who
claimed that the literature itself was often subordinate to the political or
social message of the movement. These critics saw this as detrimental to
black literature, creating a narrowness of focus that creatively limited the
artist and the kinds of literature he or she could compose. In addition
there was a tendency in the Black Arts movement to devise theories
prior to the creation of an actual body of literature that would prove the
theory. Therefore the literature was driven by the theory rather than the
other way around. Lastly, some Black Arts movement writers were
known to judge harshly any black writer who did not conform to the
criteria and objectives of the movement. Even black writers of the past
were not exempt from being maligned, and Black Arts movement
writers often did criticize them without always taking into consideration
the historical period and context in which these past writers were
composing their literature.
Still the Black Arts movement’s influence and contributions to
American poetry were far reaching. It made literary artists rethink the
function and purpose of their work and their responsibility to their
communities and to society. It also influenced and continues to inspire
new generations of poets to experiment with a variety of artistic forms to
refuse the pressure to conform to Western standards of art and to write,
embrace, and derive their art from within their own expressive culture
**## BlackArtsResponse.docx**
Black Arts Response
Humanities Black Art Response –
Scholars.. for this assignment …. you are going to look for art or even monuments on campus…at a museum.. paintings, art around town, at a church.. , etc
Locate artwork that you believe reflects the Black Experience.. (paintings, sculptures, statues, photograph by the artist… for example..Gordan Parks was a famous photographer and his work is considered art..etc)
OPTION B – If you are unable to physically go out on campus or in the community to seek out art… you may google….Black Art and still follow the instructions below.
INSTRUCTIONS
Do this assignment in a power point or keynote.. using seven or eight slides.. OR.. you do a video of YOURSELF, responding to the question below and actually showing the art that you selected.. . click Start Assignment to post
Slide 1 – Title page
Black Art Response… (your name HUMA course number and section)
Slide 2=Take a picture of a piece of art that speaks to you and post it in this slide (YES you can use more than one art piece if you like)
Slide 3 -Name of Artist and background info (if known)
Slide 4 Where this art is located? (on campus… downtown in which city… at a museum…if so which museum.. )
Slide 5 Description of art and what it represents to you
Slide 6 In what way do YOU believe this art is connected with , or influences the Black Experience and society as a whole?
Slide 7 – Explain how it connects with any of the black movements we have studied in this course (based on readings and videos).. PLEASE ELABORATE
Week 4- Black Arts/Black Power Movement
[An Introduction to the Black Arts Movement 20-1.pdf](https://wileyc.instructure.com/courses/9362/files/811262?wrap=1) [Download An Introduction to the Black Arts Movement 20-1.pdf](https://wileyc.instructure.com/courses/9362/files/811262/download?download_frd=1)
Article , please read
[https://youtu.be/0IhzbA6lHTQ?feature=sharedLinks to an external site.](https://youtu.be/0IhzbA6lHTQ?feature=shared)
Black Panther Party for Self Defense
Scholars, please read the article and watch this video and respond to questions by clicking START ASSIGNMENT. IN YOUR OWN WORDS… respond to the questions.. Please write in COMPLETE SENTENCES.
What was the Black Arts Movement and Who were 3 of the artist, what was their art form, from that era..
What are three significant things you learned from the article…and three significant things you learned from viewing this film?
What are some of the demands involved in the Black Panther Party?
What are some of the surprising details you learned from this film?
Describe the programs developed by the Black Panther Party and how they benefited Black people
What part did art, music, poetry, etc, play during the height of the Black Panther Party?
## image1.png
**## AnIntroductiontotheBlackArtsMovement20-1.pdf**
An Introduction to the Black Arts Movement
B Y N A S R U L L A H M A M B R O L ON J U L Y 9 , 2 0 2 0 • ( 0 )
The Black Arts movement was a controversial literary faction that
emerged in the mid-1960s as the artistic and aesthetic arm of the Black
Power movement, a militant political operation that rejected the
integrationist purposes and practices of the Civil Rights movement that
preceded it. The Black Arts movement was one of the only American
literary movements to merge art with a political agenda. Because poems
were short and could be recited at rallies and other political activities to
incite and move a crowd, poetry was the most popular literary genre of
the Black Arts movement, followed closely by drama. Poet, playwright,
activist, and major figure of the Black Arts movement, Amiri Baraka
(formerly LeRoi Jones) coined the term Black Arts when he established
his Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School in New York City’s Harlem.
Although the Black Arts movement began its decline during the mid-
1970s, at the same time as the Black Power movement began its descent,
it introduced a new breed of black poets and a new brand of black
poetry. It also inspired and energized already established poets like
Gwendolyn BROOKS and Robert Hayden. The Black Arts movement
created many poetic innovations in form, language, and style that have
influenced the work of many of today’s spoken word artists and socially
conscious rap lyricists.
[https://literariness.org/author/nasrullahmambrol/](https://literariness.org/author/nasrullahmambrol/)
[https://literariness.org/2020/07/09/an-introduction-to-the-black-arts-movement/](https://literariness.org/2020/07/09/an-introduction-to-the-black-arts-movement/)
[https://literariness.org/2020/07/09/an-introduction-to-the-black-arts-movement/#respond](https://literariness.org/2020/07/09/an-introduction-to-the-black-arts-movement/#respond)
The poets most often associated with the Black Arts movement include
Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Etheridge Knight, Nikki Giovanni, Larry Neal,
Mari Evans, Don L. Lee (now known as Haki Madhubutti), Carolyn
Rodgers, Marvin X, Jayne Cortez, Askia Toure, and June Jordan. A
number of important African-American playwrights, fiction writers, and
scholars also made significant contributions to the Black Arts
movement, creatively as well as philosophically and theoretically, by
defining and outlining the objectives and criteria of the movement and
its “black aesthetic.”
Several publishing houses and workshops were founded during the
period of the movement, and several magazines and journals emerged,
all of which provided a vehicle for the literary work of Black Arts poets.
Literary publications, such as Freedomways, Negro Digest (later
renamed Black World), the Black Scholar, the Journal of Black
Poetry, and Liberator, brought Black Arts movement poets to a larger
audience when more established publications rejected their work. Two
important publishing houses—Dudley Randall’s Broadside Press in
Detroit and Madhubuti’s Third World Press in Chicago—were also
instrumental in helping to introduce new poets and to disseminate their
work. Umbra Workshop (1962–65), composed of a group of black
writers, produced Umbra Magazine and gained significance as a literary
group that created a distinct voice and often challenged mainstream
standards concerning literature. Lastly, Baraka’s Black Arts Repertory
Theatre/School, founded in 1965, brought free plays, poetry readings,
and musical performances to the people of Harlem, thereby carrying out
the idea of art as a communal experience.
The Black Power movement, from which the Black Arts movement
derived, sought to empower African- American communities
economically and politically by relying solely on resources within the
black community. It also sought to celebrate blackness and restore
positive images of black people from the negative stereotyping that took
place in the larger society. Thus slogans, such as “Black Is Beautiful,”
were prominent during the time. Members of organizations, such as the
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), under the
leadership of Stokely Carmichael, and the Black Panther Party, founded
by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, demanded racial equality, not
through the methods of passive resistance associated with Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr., but “by any means necessary” (a slogan of the party),
including “violent revolution,” as stated by Malcolm X. Moreover,
“black cultural nationalism,” the belief that blacks and whites had two
separate worldviews and outlooks on life, was a prominent idea in both
the Black Power and the Black Arts movements. As a result, Black Arts
movement writers experimented with methods of artistic expression that
were characteristic of African-American culture and experience. First all
of the poetry was infused with a certain level of black consciousness,
meaning that its subjects and themes reflected the quality and character
of black experience. In form, Black Arts movement poets often rejected
standard English in favor of Black English, a more colloquial and
vernacular language and syntax. They peppered it with street slang and
idiomatic phrases that were simple, direct, explicit, and often irreverent.
In addition the poetry borrowed greatly from black music, using
rhythmical effects from jazz and blues, as well as from other forms of
black oral speech, such as sermons, folktales, signifying (an intricate,
humorous language style that uses indirection, innuendo, puns,
metaphors, and other wordplay to persuade, argue, send a message, or
insult), and the dozens (a form of signifying that involves trading insults,
primarily about a person’s relatives). Other common features of the
poetry include free verse, short line lengths, call-and-response patterns,
chanting, and free rhyming.
The Black Arts movement had much in common with another period of
increased artistic production among African-American writers—the
Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. During both periods, there was an
increased interest in establishing a more assertive black collective
identity than had previously existed (during the Harlem Renaissance, it
was called “the New Negro”) and in searching for ethnic identity and
heritage in folk and African culture. Thus poets from both periods
experimented with folk elements, such as blues, spirituals, and
vernacular idioms in their poetry, and venerated Africa. However,
despite these similarities, many Black Arts movement writers were
critical of the objectives of the Harlem Renaissance, believing it had
failed to link itself concretely to the struggle of the black masses.
Adherents of the Black Arts movement were also critical of Harlem
Renaissance writers’ reliance on white patronage, as well as their
tendency to esteem Western art, to desire mainstream recognition, and to
write with a white audience in mind. They felt that this compromised
black writers’ ability to be completely honest in their depiction and
expression of black life and struggle.
The Black Arts movement established a number of objectives and
criteria for its creative artists to follow. Primary among them was to
persuade African Americans to reject the mainstream culture and the
process of Americanization and assimilation, instead encouraging them
to embrace a “black aesthetic,” whereby black people would look to
their own culture and aesthetic values to create and evaluate African-
American literature. The three major criteria of the Black Arts
movement, established by Ron Karenga, were that all black art must be
“functional, collective, and committed” (33). The functional nature of
black art meant that the literary work must serve a purpose larger than
merely the creation of art. It had to be connected to the social and
political struggles in which African-American people were engaged. The
second criterion, that black art must be “collective,” meant that it must
serve the people; it must educate, inspire, and uplift them. Reciprocally,
the artist must learn from and be inspired and uplifted by the people. The
artist must be prepared to sacrifice her or his own individuality and,
instead, always write with the good of the people in mind. Third and
lastly, black art must be committed to political and social reform and
supportive of the revolution that will bring this about. In essence the
Black Arts movement’s objectives were to reach the masses of black
people, to make them understand their message of self-sufficiency and
dignity, and to inspire them to act upon it.
Many of the criteria and objectives of the Black Arts movement are
discernible within the poetry itself. For example, in “From the Egyptian”
in his 1966 collection Black Art, Baraka makes clear that violent
confrontation with the oppressors of black people is an imminent reality
as he asserts that he is prepared to murder “the enemies / of my father.”
Likewise, in “The True Import of Present Dialogue, Black vs. Negro”
in Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968), Giovanni tells black people: “We
ain’t got to prove we can die / We got to prove we can kill.” Giovanni
also demonstrates the criterion of commitment with “My Poem” (1968),
when she writes in support of the revolution and its enduring nature,
stating that “if i never do anything / it will go on.” The didacticism of
much Black Arts poetry is visible in Baraka’s “A School of Prayer”
(1966). In this poem, Baraka tells his black audience: “Do not obey their
laws.” “Their,” of course, refers to white society. Essentially Baraka
urges black people to rebel against white authority and be wary of the
words spoken by those who seek to oppress them because their purpose
is to deceive black people and curtail their advancement. The celebration
of blackness is also noticeable in Black Arts poetry. Sanchez, perhaps
the female poet most closely identified with the Black Arts movement,
reclaims the dignity of black womanhood in an unnamed poem in her
volume We a BaddDDD People (1970), when she links herself as a
black woman to a regal African queen who will, “Walk / move in / blk
queenly ways.” Similarly, in “Ka Ba” (1969), Baraka affirms the
uniqueness of black expressive culture and of black people, whom he
describes as “full of masks and dances and swelling chants / with
African eyes and noses and arms,” despite the present condition of
oppression and degradation under which many African Americans live.
In both of these poems, Sanchez and Baraka seek to restore to black
people a positive representation of blackness and raise their collective
sense of identity.
Many of the poems in Sanchez’s collection We a BaddDDD
People exemplify experimentation with language. In
“indianapolis/summer/1969/poem,” Sanchez provides a new spelling of
the words mothers (“mothas”), fathers (“fathas”), and sisters (sistuhs”);
the word about becomes “bout,” the word black becomes “blk,” and the
word I becomes “i.” The changes in spelling, as well as the use of
nonstandard English in Sanchez’s poems, are meant to capture the
syntax and vernacular speech of many within the black community,
while the abbreviated spelling of “blk” and the lower case “i” are part of
Sanchez’s refusal to adhere to the rules of standard English. Many Black
Arts poets perceived language to be a tool of the oppressor and therefore
sought ways to make it their own. Lastly, the use of pejorative
terminology and irreverent language was also common among Black
Arts poets. The police were often referred to as “pigs,” and white people
were termed “honkies” or “crackers.”
Several criticisms have been leveled against the Black Arts movement.
One was that it tended only to address issues of race and to promote
racial hatred. Also the functional aspect of the Black Arts movement
came to be denounced by newly emerging black literary critics who
claimed that the literature itself was often subordinate to the political or
social message of the movement. These critics saw this as detrimental to
black literature, creating a narrowness of focus that creatively limited the
artist and the kinds of literature he or she could compose. In addition
there was a tendency in the Black Arts movement to devise theories
prior to the creation of an actual body of literature that would prove the
theory. Therefore the literature was driven by the theory rather than the
other way around. Lastly, some Black Arts movement writers were
known to judge harshly any black writer who did not conform to the
criteria and objectives of the movement. Even black writers of the past
were not exempt from being maligned, and Black Arts movement
writers often did criticize them without always taking into consideration
the historical period and context in which these past writers were
composing their literature.
Still the Black Arts movement’s influence and contributions to
American poetry were far reaching. It made literary artists rethink the
function and purpose of their work and their responsibility to their
communities and to society. It also influenced and continues to inspire
new generations of poets to experiment with a variety of artistic forms to
refuse the pressure to conform to Western standards of art and to write,
embrace, and derive their art from within their own expressive culture
– 1
– 2