7/22/2020 An Introduction to the Black Arts Movement | Poetry Foundation

COLLECTION

An Introduction to the Black

Arts Movement
Showcasing one of the most influential cultural movements of the last 50 years.

The Black Arts Movement began—symbolically, at least—the day after Malcolm

X was assassinated in 1965. The poet LeRoi Jones (soon to rename himself Amiri
Baraka) announced he would leave his integrated life on New York City’s Lower
East Side for Harlem. There he founded the Black Arts Repertory Theatre, home
to workshops in poetry, playwriting, music, and painting.

The Black Arts, wrote poet Larry Neal, was “the aesthetic and spiritual sister of
the Black Power concept.” As with that burgeoning political movement, the Black
Arts Movement emphasized self-determination for Black people, a separate
cultural existence for Black people on their own terms, and the beauty and
goodness of being Black. Black Arts poets embodied these ideas in a defiantly
Black poetic language that drew on Black musical forms, especially jazz; Black
vernacular speech; African folklore; and radical experimentation with sound,
spelling, and grammar. Black Arts Movement poet and publisher Haki
Madhubuti wrote, “And the mission is how do we become a whole people, and
how do we begin to essentially tell our narrative, while at the same time move
toward a level of success in this country and in the world? And we can do that. I
know we can do that.”
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The Black Arts Movement was politically militant; Baraka described its goal as “to
create an art, a literature that would fight for black people's liberation with as
much intensity as Malcolm X our ‘Fire Prophet’ and the rest of the enraged
masses who took to the streets.” Drawing on chants, slogans, and rituals of call
and response, Black Arts poetry was meant to be politically galvanizing. Because
of its politics—as well as what some saw as its potentially homophobic, sexist, and
anti-Semitic elements—the Black Arts Movement was one of the most
controversial literary movements in US history.

The movement began to wane in the mid-1970s, in tandem with its political
counterpart, the Black Power movement. Government surveillance and violence
decimated Black Power organizations, but the Black Arts Movement fell prey to
internal schism—notably over Baraka’s shift from Black nationalism to Marxism-
Leninism—and financial difficulties.

Mainstream theaters and publishing houses embraced a select number of Black

Arts Movement poets seen as especially salable to white audiences. When these
artists moved on from Black Arts presses and theaters, the revenue from their
books and plays went with them. The independent economic support structure
the movement had hoped to build for itself was decimated. “During the height of
Black Arts activity, each community had a coterie of writers and there were
publishing outlets for hundreds, but once the mainstream regained control, Black
artists were tokenized,” wrote poet, filmmaker, and teacher Kalamu ya Salaam.
Along with the economic recession of the 1970s and philanthropic foundations’
unwillingness to fund arts organizations that advocated radical politics, the
cooption of a few Black artists by a white establishment meant the movement was
no longer financially viable.

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Despite its brief official existence, the movement created enduring institutions
dedicated to promoting the work of Black artists, such as Chicago’s Third World
Press and Detroit’s Broadside Press, as well as community theaters. It also created
space for the Black artists who came afterward, especially rappers, slam poets, and
those who explicitly draw on the movement’s legacy. Ishmael Reed, a sometimes
opponent of the Black Arts Movement, still noted its importance in a 1995
interview: “I think what Black Arts did was inspire a whole lot of Black people to
write. Moreover, there would be no multiculturalism movement without Black
Arts. Latinos, Asian Americans, and others all say they began writing as a result of
the example of the 1960s. Blacks gave the example that you don't have to
assimilate. You could do your own thing, get into your own background, your
own history, your own tradition and your own culture.”

This collection brings together poems, podcasts, and essays by or about Black
Arts Movement writers. Of course, we cannot pay tribute to every single poet's
contribution and affiliation with this movement, so this collection is intended to
be a beginning point, not the end point. To suggest additions to the collection,
please contact us here.

A M I R I B A R A K A

Dope

AMIRI BARAKA

Legacy

AMIRI BARAKA

Short Speech to My Friends

AMIRI BARAKA

G W E N D O LY N B R O O K S

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RIOT

G W E N D O LY N B R O O K S

kitchenette building

G W E N D O LY N B R O O K S

Young Afrikans

G W E N D O LY N B R O O K S

J AY W R I G H T

Benjamin Banneker Helps to Build a City

J AY W R I G H T

Light's Interrupted Amplitude

J AY W R I G H T

The Healing Improvisation of Hair

J AY W R I G H T

M AYA A N G E LO U

Still I Rise

M AYA A N G E L O U

Awaking in New York

M AYA A N G E L O U

N I K K I G I OVA N N I

BLK History Month

N I K K I G I O VA N N I

A Historical Footnote to Consider Only When All Else Fails

N I K K I G I O VA N N I

The Great Pax Whitie

N I K K I G I O VA N N I

E T H E R I D G E K N I G H T

The Sun Came

ETHERIDGE KNIGHT

A Fable

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ETHERIDGE KNIGHT

Last Words by “Slick”

ETHERIDGE KNIGHT

AU D R E LO R D E

Power

A U D R E LO R D E

A Litany for Survival

A U D R E LO R D E

A Woman Speaks

A U D R E LO R D E

J U N E J O R DA N

Letter to the Local Police

JUNE JORDAN

A Poem about Intelligence for My Brothers and Sisters

JUNE JORDAN

Poem about My Rights

JUNE JORDAN

J A M E S B A L DW I N

Le sporting-club de Monte Carlo (for Lena Horne)

JAMES BALDWIN

Munich, Winter 1973 (for Y.S.)

JAMES BALDWIN

Staggerlee wonders

JAMES BALDWIN

N TOZ A K E S H A N G E

nappy edges (a cross country sojourn)

N TOZ A K E S H A N G E

senses of heritage

N TOZ A K E S H A N G E

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its happenin/ but you dont know abt it

N TOZ A K E S H A N G E

H A K I R . M A D H U B U T I

Quality: Gwendolyn Brooks at 73

HAKI R. MADHUBUTI

For the Consideration of Poets

HAKI R. MADHUBUTI

LO R E N ZO T H O M AS

Inauguration

LO R E N ZO T H O M A S

MMDCCXIII 1/2

LO R E N ZO T H O M A S

Q U I N C Y T R O U P E

Poem for My Father

QUINCY TROUPE

S O N I A S A N C H E Z

Haiku and Tanka for Harriet Tubman

SONIA SANCHEZ

H E N RY D U M AS

The Zebra Goes Wild Where the Sidewalk Ends

HENRY DUMAS

Son of Msippi

HENRY DUMAS

Kef 24

HENRY DUMAS

J AY N E CO R T E Z

There It Is

J AY N E C O R T E Z

Under the Edge of February

J AY N E C O R T E Z

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These New York City Pigeons

J AY N E C O R T E Z

B E L L H O O K S

Appalachian Elegy (Sections 1-6)

BELL HOOKS

A I

Killing Floor

AI

Interview with a Policeman

AI

Woman to Man

AI

A N G E L A J AC K S O N

Miz Rosa Rides the Bus

ANGELA JACKSON

Mules and Women

ANGELA JACKSON

OT H E R B L AC K A R T S P O E T S O F N OT E

Carolyn M. Rodgers

Tony Medina

Alvin Aubert

A R T I C L E S & B LO G P O S T S

Expressive Language

AMIRI BARAKA

Directed by Desire

ADRIENNE RICH

Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood

JUNE JORDAN

The Poet’s Table

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M AY U K H S E N

No Square Poet’s Job

TO N Y R E H A G E N

Nikki Giovanni 101

T H E E D I TO R S

From “To Float in the Space Between”

T E R R A N C E H AY E S

Renaissance Woman

DANIELLE A. JACKSON

Audre Lorde 101

B E N J A M I N VO I GT

Maya Angelou 101

T H E E D I TO R S

‘My Music Is Words’

L AV E L L E P O R T E R

Mother of Black Studies

KYLA MARSHELL

For the Sake of People’s Poetry

JUNE JORDAN

The Fires Behind Him

NICK STURM

Dear Sister Outsider

L AV E L L E P O R T E R

Gwendolyn Brooks at 100

T H E E D I TO R S

The Last Black Radical: How Cuba Turned LeRoi Jones Into Amiri Baraka

H A R M O N Y H O L I D AY

From “A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun”

ANGELA JACKSON

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The Eros in Democracy

MEGHAN O'ROURKE

“Velvety Velour ” and Other Sonnet Textures

CHRISTINA PUGH

Brooks’s Prosody: Three Sermons on the Warpland

CARL PHILLIPS

Mundane and Plural

D AV I D B A K E R

Poetic Training

RUTH GRAHAM

AU D I O A N D V I D E O

South Side Community Arts Center

F R O M C H I C A G O P O E T R Y TO U R P O D C A S T

Hall Library

F R O M C H I C A G O P O E T R Y TO U R P O D C A S T

Gwendolyn Brooks

FROM POETRY LECTURES

Gwendolyn Brooks: Essential American Poets

FROM ESSENTIAL AMERICAN POETS

Something in the Way: A discussion of Amiri Baraka’s “Something in the Way of Things (In

Town)”

F R O M P O E M TA L K

After the Night Years: On "The Sun Came" by Etheridge Knight and "Truth" by Gwendolyn

Brooks

F R O M P O E M TA L K

Choice and Style: A Discussion of Amiri Baraka's "Kenyatta Listening to Mozart"

F R O M P O E M TA L K

Not Detainable: A discussion of Gwendolyn Brooks’s “Riot”

F R O M P O E M TA L K

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Poems from the Inside

FROM POETRY OFF THE SHELF

The Poet and the Riot

FROM POETRY OFF THE SHELF

The Uses of Anger

FROM POETRY OFF THE SHELF

Amiri Baraka is Back in the Building

FROM POETRY OFF THE SHELF

The Poetry of Close Quarters

FROM POETRY OFF THE SHELF

Recasting Gwendolyn

FROM POETRY OFF THE SHELF

"What I Wanted Was Your Love, Not Pity"

FROM POETRY OFF THE SHELF

June Jordan

FROM POETRY OFF THE SHELF

We Real Cool

FROM POEM VIDEOS

“The Children of the Poor ” by Gwendolyn Brooks

F R O M F AV O R I T E P O E M P R O J E C T

C O N TA C T U S

N E WS L E T T E R S

PRESS

P R I VA C Y P O L I C Y

POLICIES

TERMS OF USE

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