Malcolm X's Impact On The Black Arts Movement

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After Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965, those who embraced the Black Power Movement became Black Revolutionary Nationalists and were a part of the Black Panther Party or were Black Cultural Nationalists who called for the creation of poetry, visual arts, and other artistic creations to reflect pride in Black people and formed the Black Arts Movement. The latter movement took place in an era that dealt with multiple issues regarding racial discrimination, poverty, and lack of civil rights. Black communities needed to be empowered by the visually artistic manifestations of art, poetry, and plays that not only depicted their struggles as Blacks, but gave them strength to love their culture and achieve self-determination as a people. Several …show more content…

The ideology of Malcolm X had a significant impact on Black intellectuals in the Black Arts Movement. X proposed a “cultural revolution which will provide the means for restoring our identity that we might rejoin our brothers and sisters on the African continent, culturally, psychologically, economically, and share with them the sweet fruits of freedom from oppressed and independence of racist governments” (Alexander, Trauma and Collective Identity, 123). The movement explored the inferiority of black life and culture in the United States and hoped to exhibit ethos through poetry, music, and …show more content…

Baraka publicized that the theater be “revolutionary” and that it “should force change” (The Revolutionary Theatre, 1965, Liberator). The movement used the theater as a way of visually presenting radical ideas such as separating from the whites and cultural empowerment and appreciation for the Black people of Harlem. For example, in the play, the “Great Goodness of Life” (A Coon Show), it juxtaposes two characters, one known as the Uncle Tom, who wears a suit and tie and the other, a revolutionary youth who wears dashikis, black clothes, and an Afro (“Great Goodness of Life”, 38). The clothes in which both characters wear, demonstrate the differences among those who wished to identify and work their way up in the white man’s system opposed to those who wore Dashiki’s to symbolize and represent their appreciation for their African ancestry, and the wearing of natural hair empowers the Black individual to love their natural beauty. If you were identified as an Uncle Tom, it was both an insult and negative stereotype of Black men. For this reason, people began to readily align themselves with the Black revolutionary youth in the play. The Black Arts Movement continued to push that the concept of ‘art for people’s sake” (Collins, New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement, 286). The Black Arts Movement demanded the attention of ‘only Black audiences’ because it was

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