"For the first time since the plantation days artists began to touch new material, to understand new tools and to accept eagerly the challenge of Black poetry, Black song and Black scholarship."1
By 1934 the economic destruction wreaked by the Great Depression had put between eleven and fifteen million people out of work. Ten thousand of these jobless citizens were artists. A year earlier, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the newly elected president, had signed into legislation the Federal Emergency Relief Act. Based on a system of work relief, this project's primary objective was simply to get people back to work, artists included. The government had no particular commitment to the arts, but it realized that artists "have to eat like other people."2 New Deal employment projects, however, didn't just put food on the artist's table. Through an innovative set of programs, the government set the scene for a richly productive era in American art.
In 1935 Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration (later the Work Projects Administration) or WPA. Its purpose was to create all kinds of jobs at every level of the skill ladder, preserving professional and technical skills while helping individuals maintain their self-respect. Artists in the program were paid $15 to $90 a month for a wide variety of assignments. Work-relief programs functioned under this basic design from 1935 to 1939 when the WPA was renamed the Work Projects Administration and placed under the supervision of the Federal Art Project (FAP). The WPA/FAP lasted until 1943, when productivity and employment soared as the country marshaled its resources to fight World War II.
From 1935 to 1943 the WPA/FAP had four major areas of activity: the creation of art, art education, art as applied to community service, and technical and archaeological research. The most prolific divisions were those responsible for easel painting, murals, sculpture, and fine prints.
"Black Printmakers and the WPA" specifically addresses the area of fine prints and the community art centers where they were made. There, art education and community service combined to give significant numbers of Black artists the rare opportunity to be supported in their chosen line of work, to gain new avenues for expression, and to have contact with white artists, which under other circumstances would not have occurred.
The Black printmaker has only a few recorded historical antecedents. While there is documentation showing that Black printmakers were active in this country as early as 1724, the anonymity of the slave makes it almost impossible to trace individual achievements.
Although Barnes’ marriage was not a successful one, he adored his newborn baby girl, and was heartbroken when his wife left him, taking his daughter with her. At North Carolina College, Barnes majored in art, and developed his own style (Artist Vitae, 1999). When Barnes was a freshman in college he went on a field trip to the newly desegregated North Carolina Museum of Art. At the museum Barnes noticed that there weren’t any works by black artist displayed, and when he asked the guide where the black artists were exhibited, the guide responded, “your people don’t express themselves this way” (Artist Vitae, 1999). That negative response encouraged Barnes to work hard at becoming an artist.
The "New Negro," the Black writers in 1920/30, tried to get out of the dominant white assimilation and practice their own tradition and identity in autonomous and active attitude. In virtue of their activities, the Harlem Renaissance became the time of sprouting the blackness. It offered the life of the black as the criterion to judge how well the democracy practices in America and to weigh the measure of the dream of America. Their vitality and artistic spirit, and dreams were so impressive that the Harlem of the 1920s has never been eluded out from the memory of American (Helbling 2).
Philadelphia, PA: Davis University Press, Inc. Smith, J, & Phelps, S (1992). Notable Black American Women (1st Ed). Detroit, MI: Gale & Co. Webster, Raymond B. (1999). African American Firsts in Science & Technology (1st Ed.).
Think of the last time you saw a painting that featured African Americans in it. Were they the main focus? Did the painting have only African Americans or did it include white Americans too? Now think about the artist, were they an African American? The average person who knows little to nothing about art most likely does not know any African American artists or does not know many artworks that involve only black people in a non-historical context. Kerry James Marshall’s exhibition Mastry is exactly that. It is made up of multiple artworks which only show black people in both historical and non-historical contexts. This exhibition helps to counter this issue of the lack of artworks where only black people are portrayed how white people would
In order to add something to their lives, [black families] decorated their tenements and their homes in all of these colors. I've been asked, is anyone in my family artistically inclined? I've always felt ashamed of my response and I always said no, not realizing that my artistic sensibility came from this ambiance.... It's only in retrospect that I realized I was surrounded by art. You'd walk Seventh Avenue and took in the windows and you'd see all these colors in the depths of the depression. All these colors.
The Great Depression of the 1930s was a catastrophic time period of international stock market crashes, economic downfall, and drop in world trade. This led millions of Americans to become poor overnight, spiraling them into poverty. Consequently, many factories, businesses and construction projects slowed down. With production at a minimum, many workers were let go. Those who kept their jobs saw their salaries drop. Soon, the streets were filled with bread lines, soup kitchens, and many homeless people. Even farmers throughout the nation were affected by this event and were forced to leave their harvesting crops rotting in the fields. In 1932, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, introduced to Congress the New Deal. The programs and projects of the New Deal were designed to help America and her citizens get back on their feet. The Public Workers Administration (PWA) was created by the National Industry Recovery Act on June 16, 1933 by the President's first female cabinet member, Frances Perkins, along with Harold Ickes, James Farley, and Henry
Visceral. Raw. Controversial. Powerful. The works which Kara Walker creates have elicited strong and diametric responses from members of the art community. She manipulates the style of antebellum era silhouettes, intended to create simple, idealistic images, and instead creates commentaries on race, gender, and power within the specific history of the United States. She has also been accused of reconfirming the negative stereotypes of black people, especially black women, that the viewer and that the white, male dominated art world may hold. This perspective implies that both her subjects and her artworks are passive when confronted with their viewers. Personally, I believe that more than anything, Walker’s work deals in power -- specifically, the slim examples of power black individuals have over their
In a time of dire need there is always at least a sliver of hope that remains, a light that never goes out despite the darkness around. If this is the case, for a time such as the Great Depression than what was that “sliver of hope” or that “light in the darkness”, so to speak? Although President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s other efforts are much appreciated, the “light” of the Great Depression is, hands down, the Works Progress Administration. Why? The Great Depression was a time of despair and unfortunate events for all citizens of the United States; left and right, the homeless and the jobless were seen forlornly sauntering the streets seeking jobs that could and would not be found. It is in this instance that the Works Progress Administration takes the stage, created by President Franklin Roosevelt, the WPA’s sole reason of existence was to employ the jobless by funding public works projects. With these projects the unemployed were given jobs and projects were carried out such as the photography projects of the Farm Security Administration. Among the most famous photographers of these projects are Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and Russell Lee.
While critics might argue that the federal money was wasted on unnecessary projects, it is clear that the work of the WPA enabled America’s economy to bounce back from the Great Depression. It gave the people of the United States something to believe in and managed to unite the country under one common goal: revive the economy. By 1945, there were few starving children lining the streets and no men searching desperately for pay. The United States had recovered from the supposedly unrecoverable, all thanks to the millions of workers that the Works Progress Administration employed and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s determination.
Roosevelt, Roosevelt enacted the New Deal, a series of programs and initiatives that assisted many Americans in bringing stability back to the American economy and society. The First New Deal was launched in 1933. As many Americans lost their homes, jobs and life savings due to the Great Depression, the First New Deal focused on economic recovery (Foner, 815). President Roosevelt believed it was the government’s responsibility to guarantee every man the right to make a comfortable living (Foner, 810). Successively, he created many governmental jobs to assist the unemployed. In 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was created (Foner, 805). This program set young men up to work on forest preservation projects, flood control, and improving national parks and wildlife (Foner, 805). This program helped over 3 million American men, by paying governmental wages to the workers (Foner, 805). Following the CCC, the Public Works Administration (PWA) was formed (Foner, 806). This program contracted with private construction agencies to build useful infrastructure around the United States, and was appropriated $3.3 billion to carryout the plan (Foner, 806). Trailing the PWA, the Civil Works Administration (CWA) was constructed. This program was much like the PWA, instead of contracting with private businesses, the CWA directly hired workers for construction projects (Foner, 806). These programs worked to get men back to
Shortly after Rachel was written in 1916, the New Negro Movement began to gain traction in the African American community. This broad cultural movement focused on promoting a public image of African Americans as industrious, urban, independent, and distinct from the subservient and illiterate “Old Negro” of the rural South. Unlike his predecessor, the New Negro was self-sufficient, intellectually sophisticated, creative, knowledgeable and proud of his racial heritage (Krasner, Beautiful Pageant 140). While these concepts had been promoted since the turn of the century, it was not until 1917-1918 that they began to crystalize as a concerted effort among African American intellectuals. These men actively supported the creation of black drama because they recognized that “At a time when African Americans had virtually no political recourse, their voice could best be heard through…a creative and humanistic effort to achieve the goal of civil rights by producing positive images of African Americans and promoting activism through art” (“New Negro Movement” 926). The New Negros therefore shared the same overall goal as black intellectuals such as DuBois, but believed that black artists should focus on presenting the reality and beauty of the “black human experience” instead of an idealized vision of what life should be. Ultimately, the transition from “political” art to that which held creativity in high esteem was complex and divisive. Fortunately, just as Dubois emerged as the primary advocate of the former Political Theatre, so too would Alain Locke help guide the New Negros to support the idea of Art Theatre.
The Harlem Renaissance refers to a prolific period of unique works of African-American expression from about the end of World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression. Although it is most commonly associated with the literary works produced during those years, the Harlem Renaissance was much more than a literary movement; similarly, it was not simply a reaction against and criticism of racism. The Harlem Renaissance inspired, cultivated, and, most importantly, legitimated the very idea of an African-American cultural consciousness. Concerned with a wide range of issues and possessing different interpretations and solutions of these issues affecting the Black population, the writers, artists, performers and musicians of the Harlem Renaissance had one important commonality: "they dealt with Black life from a Black perspective." This included the use of Black folklore in fiction, the use of African-inspired iconography in visual arts, and the introduction of jazz to the North.[i] In order to fully understand the lasting legacies of the Harlem Renaissance, it is important to examine the key events that led to its beginnings as well as the diversity of influences that flourished during its time.
Smith, David Lionel. “The Black Arts Movement and Its Critics.” American Literary History. 3.1 (Spring 1991): 94-109.
Over the course of the century chronicling the helm of slavery, the emancipation, and the push for civil, equal, and human rights, black literary scholars have pressed to have their voice heard in the midst a country that would dare classify a black as a second class citizen. Often, literary modes of communication were employed to accomplish just that. Black scholars used the often little education they received to produce a body of works that would seek to beckon the cause of freedom and help blacks tarry through the cruelties, inadequacies, and inconveniences of their oppressed condition. To capture the black experience in America was one of the sole aims of black literature. However, we as scholars of these bodies of works today are often unsure as to whether or not we can indeed coin the phrase “Black Literature” or, in this case, “Black poetry”. Is there such a thing? If so, how do we define the term, and what body of writing can we use to determine the validity of the definition. Such is the aim of this essay because we can indeed call a poem “Black”. We can define “Black poetry” as a body of writing written by an African-American in the United States that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of an experience or set of experiences inextricably linked to black people, characterizes a furious call or pursuit of freedom, and attempts to capture the black condition in a language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm. An examination of several works of poetry by various Black scholars should suffice to prove that the definition does hold and that “Black Poetry” is a term that we can use.
so in a way it can been seen as a type of project management since