Black Power

Black Arts Known as the "artistic sister of the Black Power movement," Black Arts refers to the collective expressions of African-American culture during the 1960s and 1970s. Corresponding with the climax of the Civil Rights movement and the self-empowerment of the African-American community, the Black Arts was a politically charged yet aesthetically ripe collection of visual, performance, music, and literary art forms. Amiri Baraka is credited widely with the genesis of the Black Arts movement.

The assassination of Malcolm X is said to have inspired Baraka to move to Harlem and delve into the transformative power of art for emboldening the black community (Salaam). Even when he was still known as LeRoi Jones, Baraka had been involved in the publishing industry, and had worked as a poet, arts critic, and playwright. His founding of the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School (BARTS) is the "formal beginning" of the movement, which Baraka himself dubbed "Black Arts," (Salaam 1).

Although the Black Arts movement began as a primarily literary movement, it became pan-artistic as well as politically charged. Black Arts is the "art of politics," (Neal 1). One of the goals of the Black Arts movement was to distinguish itself from the white dominant culture and its publishing industry. Magazines that fostered black aesthetics could therefore publish material that the white establishment would not.

Umbra Magazine actually predated the Black Arts movement, but when it dissolved in 1964, many of its members shifted to Harlem to participate in the new Black Arts milieu (Salaam). Askia Toure and Al Haynes were seminal figures in Black poetry, and formed the Uptown Writers Movement in the wake of Umbra. The Uptown Writers Movement was an example of how the Black Arts movement fostered talent within the black community. On Guard for Freedom was another early Black Arts literary organization.

Whereas much early Black Arts literature emphasized the medium of poetry, the Harlem Writers Guild enabled the use of prose as a valid and valuable vehicle for Black self-expression. Baraka also wrote much on Black performance art, which was becoming integral to Black Arts. Music rapidly began to seep into the Black Arts movement, which allowed for creative fusion. Jazz was central to Black Arts, and John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Archie Shepp, and other jazz musicians embodied the political and aesthetic ideals of the movement.

Gil Scott-Heron is also associated with the Black Arts movement, and it is therefore easy to see how hip hop owes its emergence in part to the foundation the Black Arts left in fostering African-American poetry, music, and performance art. An effect of the Black Arts movement was the establishment of Black Studies departments at major American universities. The creation of Black Studies departments not only legitimized Black Arts and Black politics, but it also helped to anchor Black Arts firmly within the dominant culture.

Nathan Hare's The Black Scholar was the first scholarly journal to promote Black Studies in academia ("The Black Arts Movement"). Other scholarly Black Arts journals subsequently emerged, such as Journal of Black Poetry. Maya Angelou and James Baldwin were Black Arts writers whose acceptance in academic circles led to a slow but perceptible transformation of racial hierarchies in America. The Black Arts movement has also impacted popular culture, and leaves.