In the 1960s and 1970s, artists of the Black Arts Movement (BAM) used the Harlem Renaissance as a political foundation to unapologetically celebrate the history, resilience, and creativity of Black people. Building on the momentum gained by creative figures such as Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Jacob Lawrence, and Loïs Mailou Jones, artists of the BAM actively shaped radical philosophies and politics of Black culture.

Artists of the BAM wanted to show solidarity with political movements that centered freedom and justice for the racialized, the poor, and the working class. This was particularly in response to the assassination of the Black revolutionary and human rights activist Malcolm X in 1965. They collectively initiated conversations, hosted public events, and strategized at protests with allies to demonstrate the pain and pride of the everyday Black experience.[1]

In 1965, the activist, poet, and writer Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) launched the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School in Harlem, New York. The school centered Black culture and liberation in artmaking. The opening of this Theatre was a key moment in launching the BAM, as it was a shared space for artists to create a Black aesthetic that was in direct conversation with liberatory politics. Other key figures of the BAM include Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Audre Lorde, Gwendolyn Brooks, and James Baldwin. Their poems, plays, and essays were important for developing the Black radical tradition. It was a tradition where people of African descent, no matter their gender, sexuality, nationality, or other marker of difference could express their vision for a world that is more just, and more free.

Importantly, these artists often created in community, which encouraged a sharing of ideas and resources. It was common for literary and visual artists to work alongside dancers, like Alvin Ailey, and musicians, like Thelonious Sphere Monk. This interdisciplinary, collective energy was important to their immediate political impact, and their legacy. This era also saw the rise of other Black-led institutions, like the founding of the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1968.[2]

The Black Panther Party was similarly vital to political organizing, cultural production, and raising awareness about Black consciousness (unity, pride, collective effort, freedom, and self-determination). By 1970, their popular Black Panther newspaper circulated over four hundred thousand copies.[3] The graphic artist Emory Douglas served as the Party’s minister of culture. He designed a visual aesthetic for the newspaper, along with flyers, posters, pins, and other formats. These pieces could easily travel and educate the Black masses about the Party’s values. Douglas’s visual language was clear and straightforward, so that audiences could easily grasp their message: “Power to the People.” Through accessible printed media, his art focused on remedying the daily realities of police brutality and imprisonment, job discrimination, housing insecurity, and unequal access to education and healthcare, among other inequities.[4]

Visual artists and activists also called attention to discrimination in schools, museums, and other institutions. The mixed-media artist Faith Ringgold made bold, Black feminist critiques in her narrative paintings and quilts. These pieces highlight the various contributions of Black women in American history and the dominance of white male voices in narratives about western arts and culture. Ringgold was also active in protests, fighting for the inclusion of diverse voices in museums. This collective resistance to anti-Black violence, and attempts to erase Black culture, can be seen in Ringgold’s painting The American People Series #18: The Flag is Bleeding (1967). This piece is from a series that brings forth the interconnected violence of displacing indigenous communities, enslaving people of African descent, and perpetuating insidious acts of white supremacy. Her work shows us that no one is free, until everyone is free. Other visual artists working in this tradition include the painter Barkley L. Hendricks and the photographers Ming Smith, Kwame Brathwaite, and Gordon Parks.

The Wall of Respect is another way that American artists mobilized to honor Black history. In 1967, a group of Chicago-based artists created a public mural that pictured over fifty iconic Black figures of American history. They divided the mural into themes: “rhythm and blues, jazz, theater, statesmen, religion, literature, sports, and dance.”[5] They showcased portraits of Billie Holiday, James Brown, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Muhammad Ali, and others. The mural’s organizers took feedback from local community members about the mural’s development as well. They demonstrated that respect, collaboration, and trust-building were key to their process and the BAM more broadly. Photographers, painters, performers, poets, and other community members contributed to the mural’s development too. A year later, some of the participating artists formed a collective called AFRI-COBRA to create an aesthetic language that specifically responded to the Black experience. In this way, AFRI-COBRA was both an intellectual and a creative endeavor by, and for, Black people to debate and collaborate on issues that were pertinent to their well-being, and their futures.[6]