The Black Arts Movement

In the late 1960’s, early 70’s a movement was emerged that called the Black Arts Movement (BAM). The Black Arts Movement was created in Harlem by writer and activist Amiri Baraka, considered the father of the Black Arts Movement. This national movement was initiated after the assassination of Malcom X. Many well-known writers were involved with the movement including: Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Maya Angelou, and Larry Neal. Many may considered the Black Arts movement to be compared to the Women Suffrage Era. This is in comparison due to artists trying to find different ways to let out their emotions and stress. Whereas, the women were fighting for their rights, similar to those of the Black Arts Movement. Before this movement, the literary …show more content…
These two movements accepted the idea of two cultural Americas-one black, one white. While the two movements emerge the political vales inherent in the Black Power concept are finding concrete expression in the aesthetics of Afro-American dramatists, poets, choreographers, musicians and novelists. The Black Arts and the Black Power concept both relate broadly to the Afro-American’s desire for self-determination and nationhood. The Black Arts Movement pushed for the creation of a representative Black Aesthetic in which black artist created for black viewers. The black aesthetic was believed to be an important component of the economic, political, and cultural empowerment of the Black community. Both concepts are nationalistic. One is politics; the other with the art of politics. The concepts of Black Power, Nationalism, Community and Performance all influenced the creation of this movement. This paper will explore one of the thoughts supported by the Black Arts Movement: The black …show more content…
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Poetry has a solid meaning, of action. Poems are physical entities: fists, daggers, airplane poems, and poems that shoot guns. Poems are transformed from physical objects into personal forces:
Put it on him, poem. Strip him naked to the world! Another bad poem cracking steel knuckles in a jewlady's mouth
Poem scream poison gas on beasts in green berets
Then the poem upholds the central relationship between Black Art and Black people:
. . Let Black people understand that they are the lovers and the sons of warriors and sons of warriors Are poems & poets & all the loveliness here in the world
It ends with the following lines, a central assertion in both the Black Arts Movement and the philosophy of Black Power:
We want a black poem. And a
Black World.
Let the world be a Black Poem
And Let All Black People Speak This Poem
Silently
or LOUD
The poem comes to stand for the attitude of Black America, the real urge in back of the Black Power movement. Which is the will toward self-determination and nationhood, an essential rearrangement of nature and function of both art and the artist. Black Arts inspired a whole lot of Black people to write. Moreover, there would be no multiculturalism movement without Black