history, African-American leaders, and the African
ancestral past, these writers attempted to create a
“symbolism, mythology, critique, and iconology”
specific to black culture and separate from the
dominant white culture (Neal, 62).
The Black Arts Movement succeeded in in-
creasing black-operated and financed publishing
houses and journals. BROADSIDE PRESS, for example,
was one of four black publishing houses operating
in the 1960s. African-American journals such as
The Journal of Negro Poetry, Black Scholar, Negro
Digest, (BLACK WORLD) Liberator, and Black The-
ater provided black artists with a forum in which
to share their work and discuss extant political and
social problems and possible resolutions, central
to which were reclaiming black history, asserting
pride in blackness, insisting on the liberation of
blacks in American society, and reconstructing the
image of blackness in mainstream American art,
media, music, and literature.
Writers of the Black Arts Movement sought
to validate black vernacular, as noted by DUDLEY
RANDALL in his introduction to The Black Poets.
Dudley Randall explains that the writers used the
language of “the folk, the streets, to jazz musicians,
the language of black people for their models”
(Randall, xxvi). The directness of the language al-
lowed them to make an unmistakable plea to all
African Americans to rise up and fight all oppres-
sive forces, with violence if necessary, in order to
free African Americans from the evils of segrega-
tion, educational and employment discrimination,
disenfranchisement, and white violence. Also, they
often used drama as a vehicle to convey their mes-
sage and validate black language. In addition to the
formation of the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/
School to meet this goal, there was an increase in
community-based black theaters that provided a
forum for black playwrights, actors, and directors
to develop their craft.
Also, during the Black Arts / BLACK POWER
MOVEMENT, black recording artists, including
Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder,
James Brown, Gil Scott Heron, and Curtis May-
field, wrote and performed socially and politically
conscious songs. Franklin’s “Think,” Brown’s “Say
It Loud I’m Black and I’m Proud,” Gaye’s “Inner
City Blues (Make Me Want to Holler),” Wonder’s
“Living for the City,” Mayfield’s “We the People
Who Are Darker Than Blue,” and Gil Scott Heron’s
“The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” became
anthems, of a sort, during this period.
Writers and the artists of the Black Arts Move-
ment were directly influenced by the political
rhetoric of key black political figures including
MARTIN LUTHER KING, MALCOLM X, Stokely Car-
michael, Huey P. Newton, and Bobby Seale. Mal-
colm X, with his call for black self-determination,
was most influential. Writers were also concerned
with the violence, both internal and external to the
United States, of the period, including the Vietnam
War, the black liberation struggle throughout the
African continent, the assassinations of Malcolm X
in 1965, Medgar Evers in 1963, Martin Luther King
in 1968, and many others. In fact, following the as-
sassination of Malcolm X, according to Sonia San-
chez, in the film “Not a Rhyme Time 1963–1986,”
LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) sent letters to black
writers, painters, musicians, social/political critics,
and so forth, asking them to work within the black
community, help organize the masses, and create
the functional art associated with the Black Arts
Movement.
The writers of the Black Arts Movement acted
as a voice for the displaced and poor black masses
in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s.
However, the various factions of the Black Arts /
Black Power movement and Civil Rights move-
ment used differing ideological perspectives to
structure their work. The Black Arts Movement au-
thors more often than not defined themselves and
constructed their work through the lens of Marx-
ism, cultural nationalism, or Pan-Africanism.
The Black Arts Movement came to a climax
around 1974 for a number of reasons, including
government harassment of the artists and a move
away from interest in Black Arts / Black Power
within the academy. Also, several artists became
targets of COINTELPRO, a counterintelligence
program of the FBI that attempted to neutral-
ize perceived “Black Nationalist Hate Groups.”
Despite attempts to downplay the significance ofBlack Arts Movement 49