The Black Arts Movement

1. The Black Arts Movement By Will Copps, Andy Drake and Charlotta Jarborg

2. Background Information • Artistic sister to the Black Power Movement • Single most controversial movement in history of African American literature • Roots: Civil Rights Movement Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, and the Black Power Movement • Dated from approximately 1960 to 1970 • Artistic goal: create politically engaged work that explored cultural and historical African American experience • One of the most important figures: Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones). After Malcolm X’s assassination, Baraka made a symbolic move from New York’s Lower East Side to Harlem where he founded the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School. This school was a key institution of the Black Arts Movement.

3. Background Info Continued • According to the Norton Anthology of African American Literature, "No one was more competent in [the] combination of the experimental and the vernacular than Amiri Baraka, whose volume Black Magic Poetry 1961-1967 (1969) is one of the finest products of the African American creative energies of the 1960s." • Common critiques: misogynist, homophobic, anti-Semitic and racially exclusive • However, also often credited with motivating a new generation of poets, writers and artists

4. The Importance of BAM • Black Arts inspired African Americans to start own publishing houses, magazines, journals and art institutions • African American Studies taught at universities • Theatre groups, poetry performances, music and dance used to spread political advertisement • Introduced variety of ethnic voices to a literary world previously dominated by white writers

5. Black Arts Aesthetics • Innovative language • Speech, music, performance • Black English Vernacular often used • Ritual use of call and response: in the work itself and also between artist and audience • Shows up later on in rap music and in slam poetry

6. Famous People in the Black Arts Movement

7. Amiri Baraka • One of the main leaders of the BAM • Authored over 40 books of poems and essays

8. A lot of shock value was really present in Baraka’s poetry • Transitions in motivations for writing

9. Evolution of a Name • Birth- Everett LeRoi Jones • 1954- LeRoi Jones • 1967- Imamu Ameer Baraka • Later- Amiri Baraka

10. Black Arts Theater Repertory/School

11. BART/S • Founded in 1964 in Harlem • Brought music and arts to the street corners of Harlem

12. Yugen • Beat literary journal • Ran 8 Issues • Work by many famous writers, such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac

13. Music Baraka cited jazz as Large influence on his work

14. Legacy (For Blues People) In the south, sleeping against the drugstore, growling under the trucks and stoves, stumbling through and over the cluttered eyes of early mysterious night. Frowning drunk waving moving a hand or lash. Dancing kneeling reaching out, letting a hand rest in shadows. Squatting to drink or pee. Stretching to climb

15. pulling themselves onto horses near where there was a sea (the old songs lead you to believe). Riding out from this town, to another, where it is also black. Down a road where people are asleep. Towards the moon or the shadows of houses. Towards the songs’ pretended sea.

16. Somebody Blew Up America • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnz5YQ0F1vY • Written as New Jersey’s Poet Laureate • Claimed Israel was involved and the government new about it • Governor saw he couldn’t abolish Baraka from the post, so he eliminated it

17. Other Troubles: • Dishonorably Discharged from Army, accused of being a communist • Left first wife and two kids, had apparent altercations with her and his 2nd wife • Publication of anti-Semitic essays and poems

18. June Jordan

19. Born 1936 in Harlem • Married a student (interracial marriage), later divorced • “His Own Where,” first novel, nominated for National Book Award in 1971 • Noted for range of emotions and importance of writing in BEV

20. Frances E. Watkins Harper

21. Born in 1825 • Not only famous poet but a women’s rights and temperance activist • Anti-slavery

22. Black Power "This is the twenty-seventh time I have been arrested and I ain't going to jail no more! The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin' us is to take over. What we gonna start sayin' now is Black Power!" – Stokey Carmichael

23. Tenants • Promotes the creation of black political and cultural institutions to secure black autonomy • Assimilation with white culture degrades black culture • “Black is Beautiful”

24. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) • John Lewis • The MFDP and Freedom Summer • Stokey Carmichael and the split with mainstream civil rights movement

25. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense • Huey Newton and Bobby Seale • Conflict with law enforcement • COINTELPRO

26. Bibliography • “The Black Panther Party.” MIA: History: USA: The Black Panther Party <http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/black-panthers/>. • “Mark Clark Legacy.” <http://www.markclarklegacy.com/>. • “Black Arts Movement.” 1998. VAH. <http://www.umich.edu/~eng499/>. • “SNCC 1960-1966” Ibiblio. <http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/>. • (http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5647) • (http://aalbc.com/authors/blackartsmovement.htm)