1965 The Black Arts Movement

The Black Arts Movement gave the power to the African American community to create and control their own narrative through virtually every medium of art.

By Eddie Walker

The Black Arts Movement, also known as the Black Aesthetic movement began in Harlem in 1965, and thrived up until 1975. It was an extension of the Civil Rights Movement that is best known for the work concerning black culture and race issues.

The Black Arts Movement sought to create art that reflected the African-American experience and addressed issues like racism, poverty, segregation, and discrimination against African Americans in America. The Black Arts Movement resulted in artists by exploring their own cultural identities through poetry, music, dance and other forms of creative expression.

Amiri Baraka known as the father of The Black Arts Movement, was an American poet, playwright and essayist who in 1964, founded the Black Arts Repertory Theater in Harlem, NY. The Black Arts Repertory was the initial spark that gave melanated artists a platform to voice and showcase their arts.

After The Black Arts Repertory Theater opened several other black owned and operated theaters and publications began to contribute to The Black Arts Movement by publishing and showcasing melanated writers, poets, and artists. In Chicago, The Negro Digest and Third World Press would grow to become popular publications throughout the era.

The Black Arts Movement, it wasn’t long before major cities in other states followed suit.

A movement initiated and fueled by Melanated men was often expressed with hyper masculinity due to the constant oppression and degradation melanated men endured in their day to day lives. However, women writers and poets such as June Jordan, Nikki Giovanni, Sonja Sanchez, and others joined the effort to cultivate a united front that would bring together melanated men and women.

Other key figures of the movement include poet, musician, and songwriter Gil Scott-Heron the great mind behind “The Revolution will not be Televised,” writer Ntozake Shange, Sonia Sanchez, musician Mikes Coltrane, and playwright Larry Neal. These artists were part of an artistic community that emerged in Harlem during this time period—a community where black artists could gather together without the racists and degrading ideals of white America at the time.These artists helped shape a new generation of proud black artists.