The Groundbreaking Movement : The Seminal Movement

The Black Arts movement refers to a period of “furious flowering” of African American creativity beginning in the mid-1960’s and continuing through much of the 1970’s (Perceptions of Black). Linked both chronologically and ideologically with the Black Power Movement, The BAM recognized the idea of two cultural Americas: one black and one white. The BAM pressed for the creation of a distinctive Black Aesthetic in which black artists created for black audiences. The movement saw artistic production as the key to revising Black American’s perceptions of themselves, thus the Black Aesthetic was believed to be an integral component of the economic, political, and cultural empowerment of the Black

Meta Warrick Fuller’s sculpture “Ethiopia Awakening” served as a metaphoric yearning for African culture, a symbolic image of emancipation, an awakening of African Americans diaspora identity, resurgence of Fuller’s artistic career and as a self-portrait of Fuller. The Progressive era, from 1890 to 1920, forms the backdrop to Fuller’s life and art. This period has come to symbolize the reform efforts of the middle class. White middle class progressives sought to reengineer industry and government, pushed for economic and social reforms. The Progressive era was also a time of intense contradictions and ambiguities. Race was the blind spot of white progressives. 1 At the turn of the twentieth-century African Americans

The intersection of social movements and Art is one that can be observed throughout the civil right movements of America in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. The sixties in America saw a substantial cultural and social change through activism against the Vietnam war, women’s right and against the segregation of the African - American communities. Art became a prominent method of activism to advocate the civil rights movement. It was a way to express self-identity as well as the struggle that people went through and by means of visual imagery a way to show political ideals and forms of resistance. To examine how a specific movement can have a profound effects on the visual art, this essay will focus on the black art movement of the 1960s and

Racial bias and discrimination have historically constricted African Americans from living free and prosperous lives. Especially, in America’s Progressive Era when “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” happened to be published. This groundbreaking essay, written by Zora Neale Hurston, provided African Americans with a unique approach to defying racial discrimination. Namely, Hurston’s unique defense from societal discrimination is in her steadfast optimism towards the limitations of being African American. Therefore, Hurston’s essay achieved more than bringing hope to African Americans it also provided a solution in this period of bitter adversity. This is what distinguishes Nora’s essay from other literary works because it focuses on modeling a beneficial mindset rather than listing the hardships that black people are subjected to. Zora Neale Hurston is an influential role model for African Americans, she argues that racial discrimination and unjust biases can be overcome by having pride and optimism in the progression of one’s race.

Society seems to change and advance so rapidly throughout the years but there has always seemed to be a history, present, and future when it comes to the struggles of the African Americans. The hatred of a skin tone has caused people to act in violent and horrifying ways including police brutality, riots, mass incarcerations, and many more. There are three movements the renaissance, civil rights, and the black lives matter movements that we have focused on. Our artist come from different eras but have at least one similarity which is the attention on black art.

I respected Locke’s message and the depiction of the importance of black art and what it represents. It reminded me that African-Americans’ creativity is often times not given the proper credit that is rightfully deserved. Given in the past, many songs by black artists were stolen by acclaimed white artists. Locke also presented the belief of how powerful black excellence is. “A negro news caring materials in English, French, and Spanish.” Despite how the world wants to repress African-Americans, my ancestors continued to preserve and reign supreme. The brilliant mindset African-Americans held at that time was by far inspiring. It proved that their consciousness was revived with determinations to achieve every

During the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a “Great Migration” of African Americans from the southern part of our country to the northern areas. The journey North was made in order to escape racial inequalities and injustices as well as to find employment. There was a sudden population boom to an area of New York City known as Harlem. “The Harlem Renaissance was a result of the cultural, social, and artistic explosion that occurred just after World War I to the middle of the 1930s” (Harlem Renaissance). The amazing writers, musicians, and artists which emerged during this “renaissance” had a profound effect on the way society viewed racism and racial discriminations and also paved the way for the Civil Rights Movement years

Lorraine Hansberry was born in Chicago on May 19, 1930, the youngest of four children. Her parents were well-educated, successful black citizens who publicly fought discrimination against black people. When Hansberry was a child, she and her family lived in a black neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. During this era, segregation—the enforced separation of whites and blacks—was still legal and widespread throughout the South. Northern states, including Hansberry’s own Illinois, had no official policy of segregation, but they were generally self-segregated along racial and economic lines. Chicago was a striking example of a city carved into strictly divided black and white neighborhoods. Hansberry’s family became one of the first to move into

The evolution of the African Americans is inspiring. Of course, our founding fathers and revolutionary patriots are motivating, but what the new negro wave did was awe-inspiring. Those intellectuals, artists, and writers were all underdogs. Society didn’t expect them to amount to much; nevertheless, the new negros prevailed and left their mark of the Harlem Renaissance, which is still underrated. The manner in which the African Americans took a stand is also incredible. They used art, literature, and music as propaganda to stand up against society’s depreciative view of blacks. Violence was not used by the African Americans, which only proves how properly civilized they were, contrary to the societal

Lorraine Hansberry, author of To Be Young, Gifted, and Black, shows deep passion about the topic of discrimination and the idea of the American Dream throughout her writing.

For many years, African Americans lived as slaves with no rights and no freedoms to develop their talents. Thus, African Americans desired a change. They were in search of a place that provided them possibility and power. Therefore, during the period of 1910-1930, many African Americans embarked on the community of Harlem in New York City. Harlem had become an elegant African American community of great strength and sophistication. So, newcomers considered Harlem the ideal place to prosper. Many individuals came here with a goal to receive equal rights. These equal rights would provide African Americans with opportunities to expand their culture in areas including literature, the arts, theater, and music. Since Harlem was rapidly developing

“The Negro artist works against an undertow of sharp criticism and misunderstanding from his own group and unintentional bribes from the whites”. This quote from Langston Hughes’ essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” demonstrates that around the time of the Harlem Renaissance, there were many pressures acting on black artists to present their race in a certain way. Hughes described not only pressures from black people to portray their race as “respectable” and “nice” people, but also conflicting pressures from white people to portray black people as conforming to their longstanding stereotypes of them. Hughes then puts his own pressure on black artists in which he states that “it is the duty of the younger Negro artist… to change

Back in the time, black immigrants were often unfairly treated and suffered by slavery. And even after slavery had been prohibited, African-American’s were still segregated from the society by a ridiculous law like “Jim Crow’s law”. Their sorrow of being discriminated and being trapped in stereotypes had been pervaded through art form, which became the center of the Harlem Renaissance. According to an American writer, Alain Locke in 1926, he applauded the artistic success of black affecting white society

This boom of appearance, also called the New Negro Movement, had long-lasting, constructive effects on the communal, scholar and profitable standing of African Americans. The festivity of African American culture was well embodied by the outstanding writer’s poets and artists that posed for the rights of African American people. flanked by 1919 and the mid 1930s Harlem seized a stand in the arts and wanted America to realize and know the artistic abilities, and educational accomplishment manifested in the course of an outpouring of new trade, skill, journalism, composition and jazz. Within this movement such writers: Langston Hughes and Zora Hurston sufficed to develop to be part of the mouth pieces that carried the movement for so scores of years. Zora Neale Hurston was a known writer whose weight was bridging the gap

Art is something that can only be achieved with the manipulation of the imagination. This is successful when using objects, sounds, and words. Richard Wright and Amira Baraka brought the power of art into the limelight. Wright’s perception of art was for it to be used as a means of guidance, one that could uplift the Negro towards bigger and better goals. Baraka’s perspective of art was for it to be used as an active agent, one that could kill and then imprint society permanently. Baraka and Wright both wanted the Negro to see that there was a much brighter future ahead of them. Both wanted art to leave a stain, a stain that could not be easily erased, washed, or bleached. Both believed that Black Art had no need to be silent but instead daring.