Sherry Mann

29 April 2004

The Black Arts Movement: Literary Exploration

Introduction

The topic I would like to write about is the Black Arts Movement (BAM). In class, we briefly touched on the idea that the BAM is a revolutionary idea in that black is beautiful. It was a time in which people were beginning to wake up. This significant movement gave people the idea of voice.

 I think it’s interesting how African-Americans once with all the limitations upon them can boldly rise up against the dominant forces and take a stand because it takes courage. I would like to gain more knowledge about this movement because this is my first time to learn about it. It’s a big part of my history, and it’s an excellent way to show my respect to African-American literature and its history.

I will generally discuss the BAM and its themes, specifically with literature. I would like to learn a bit about some significant contributors to the BAM, particularly Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, and Maya Angelou. I would like to provide a biography of each person, and a review for at least one of their works by looking closely at the themes, strategies, and features of the poems essential to the BAM. From an interview with Dr. Oettinger, a professor of sociology, I would like to include a few quotes from him to enrich my paper on any of these aspects. I hope that through some exploration of this topic that I will gain knowledge through finding lots of interesting and insightful information.

I was surprised and overwhelmed with all the information on the BAM that I found on Internet sites, especially http://www.umich.edu. This site was personally my favorite because it was so comprehensible. It includes a list and descriptions of important contributors, key institutions, information on the BAM in general, women roles, and more.

General Background of BAM

            After extensive research I learned that the Black Arts Movement occurred in the time period approximately from 1965-1975. Blacks believed that they should express themselves as distinct from the white dominant culture. African- Americans were oppressed for years, and as a result, they desired to publicly speak out through art to make a change. The BAM gave blacks the opportunity and inspired many to share their voice in literature, music, art history, dance, and theatre. Their talents were used to illustrate the injustices that they experienced.

According to an internet site, in Larry Neal’s 1968 essay, “The Black Arts Movement,” he “proclaimed Black Arts as the ‘aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power concept’ “ (“Black” par. 3). The “Black Power concept” influenced the BAM. Also, “Black Power was associated with a militant advocacy of armed self-defense, separation from ‘racist American domination,’ and pride in and assertion of the goodness and beauty of Blackness”  (par. 3). 

According to Hiltz,  “Black artists had to relate ethics and aesthetics, they had to decide whose truth to present, to deal with the ideas of beauty and truth as reflections of the black society, and as power for the black people through their art”  (Ethics par. 7). This movement gave these individuals a chance to be an artist to express their beautiful inner feelings and emotions. Larry Neal explains in his essay, “The Black Arts Movement,” “that your ethics and your aesthetics are one”  (par. 1). This means that the art is meant for African-Americans, and art helps represent their culture. Art is what saves and preserves their culture. 

Another significant concept of the BAM is the idea of “Black Aesthetic.” Only experienced, “militant, and self-aware” African-Americans truly understand the perception of Black Aesthetics (Hiltz, Black par. 3). Rather than just having to do with beauty, Black Aesthetics is “a set of criteria” in which one perceives whether a work of art is “truly ‘black’ ”  (par. 3).  To accomplish a work that is “truly black, “ the art should represent and identify with African-American experiences, history, struggles, and “reflect the need for change” (par. 6).

Although the BAM movement is multidisciplinary, I would like to focus on literature because I am a literature major. Among some of the most important figures in history that participated and contributed to the movement are Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, and Maya Angelou.

Works Cited (1)

“Black Arts Movement.” AALBC.com Home.  1997-2004. 29 Mar. 2004 <http://aalbc.com/authors/blackartsmovement.htm>.

Hiltz, Virginia and Dr. Mike Sell.  “Black Aesthetic.”  Black Arts Movement. 1998. English Department of the U of Michigan. 29 Mar. 2004 <http://www.umich.edu/~eng 499?concepts/blaes.html>.

---.”Ethics and Aesthetics.” Black Arts Movement. 1998. English Department of the U of Michigan. 29 Mar. 2004 <http://www.umich.edu/ ~eng499/ concepts/ ethics.html>.

Interview with Dr. Oettinger

The objective of this interview is to gain a better understanding of the BAM in general and the literature aspect of it. I hope to learn common themes found in the literature, how this literature is distinct or unique, the causes and effects of the BAM, whether or not it is successful, and to clarify if Maya Angelou is part of this movement or not. These are some of the inquisitions I had that I was not completely successful in finding in my research that I hoped Dr. Oettinger would clarify. Dr. Oettinger is a professor of sociology at University of Houston-Clear Lake.

Sherry:  What are some common themes found in the literature (poetry, drama) of the Black Arts Movement?

Oettinger:  I think that the Black Arts Movement has inspired the civil rights movement and responded to the civil rights movement, so what you find is pride in African American industry and culture, black power, and black strength. In our culture, if you go to an unabridged dictionary and you look up white, white is pure, unadulterated, ethical, and whole. If you look up black, you find corrupt, evil, missing, lacking, so what you find in the civil rights movement and the Black Arts Movement is that you tend to redefine the meaning in this culture such as positive, prideful, strong, beautiful, complete, and ethical.

Sherry:  How would you say that literature from the Black Arts Movement is unique or distinctive from other literature? In other words, how can you tell it is from the Black Arts Movement?

Oettinger:  I do not think in some ways it is distinctive. It’s people talking about their life experiences and people talking about the reality. There are good writers and bad writers of every gender, race, and ethnic religious labor. Therefore, I do not think Black arts literature is a different literature except that it comes out of a black experience. In this country, given the history of black people in America, that is a distinctive history, so themes are love, disappointment, the pressure, exhilaration, beauty, and pain like any literature to an extinct that you have those unique patterns of African-American literature.

Sherry: What were some of the causes of the Black Arts Movement? I know it’s following closely after the civil rights movement. Is it just because of the history African-Americans shared?

Oettinger: There’s a long history of African-American literature, and so what you are talking about is simply a different phase of it. It’s not something unique in that it’s the first time black people published a novel and wrote essays. What is different is that it was only in the 60s that the black folks had the right to eat in a restaurant, drink out a water fountain, buy a home, realistically vote, and so what you are watching is black culture immediately after the end of American apartheid (legal structure of race discrimination).

Sherry: What were some of the effects of the Black Arts Movement?

Oettinger: Literature including African-American literature has the ability to redefine sense of possibilities, so white folks reading African-American literature redefines their sense of what black people are capable of, and African-American people imagined futures and possibilities that they had not imagined before, but that’s true of any literature. That’s why all the great Russian writers have been put in prison. When there’s money and dictatorship, you don’t want people imagining different futures. So here are black folks imagining different futures after the civil rights movement and talking both to their own ethnic racial identity and to ours.

Sherry:  “Although [the BAM] fundamentally changed American attitudes both toward the function and meaning of literature as well as the place of ethnic literature in English departments, African-American scholars as prominent as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. have deemed it the ‘shortest and least successful’ movement in African-American cultural history” (http://www.umich.edu/~eng499).

How would you respond to this?

Oettinger:  I think it was distinctive over a particular period. It was a reaction against black civil rights that set in fairly quickly and were accepted. Again the political climate was changed, but I think it’s going to take time to decide whether it was successful or not. Did it successfully express black feelings at that time? Yes, it was successful. You must have literature, and you need to have meaning for people. I think it probably does. Gates is a very distinguishable scholar, but I would probably argue with him. 

Sherry:  Is Maya Angelou a figure from this period? Much of my research stated she fits as a person responding to the Harlem Renaissance period. Was the poem by Maya Angelou posted on the door of your office written for the BAM?

Oettinger:  She is a figure from the Black Arts Movement. She is inspired by the civil rights movement but she was not part of it. I’m not sure when the poem on my door was written, but it was probably about fifteen years ago, so it was probably after the Black Arts Movement. I believe Scholars tend to divide history into discreet categories like the Black Arts Movement began on this date and ended on that date, but I suspect that artists that are right with literature don’t confine themselves to those scholarly categories. Maya Angelou continues to write and is inspired by the liberation of black people in America and, that’s like many people including me, which is why I have her quote outside my door.

Sherry:  Is there anything else that you think is interesting or significant about the literature of the BAM or the BAM in general that you would like to add?

Oettinger:  I think in many ways the promise of civil rights movement has not been fulfilled. It’s hard to believe how little distance we have come in the last eighteen years around the support of education that triggered the civil rights movement. Fifty years ago, this coming May 17, the civil rights started. Even though there has been a lot gained, it’s striking to me how little has been gained. Black/white income is about the same, and there are still unequal ratios, so I suspect there is still energy in the black community to speak to the particular conditions of black folks in our literature. Whether scholars categorize this to the movement, I’m not sure.

As a formal judgment, Dr Oettinger, a professor of sociology, participated in my interview. He claimed that this is not his specialization, but I found him to be very helpful, and he was a great contributor to my research. He encouraged me to take a trip to the Heritage Art Gallery in Houston to explore the art of the Black Arts Movement.

Works Cited (2)

Oettinger, Craig. Personal Interview. 28 Apr. 2004.

Biography of Amiri Baraka

Amiri Baraka is sometimes referred to as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amiri Baraka. In 1934 Amiri Baraka was born in Newark, New Jersey and later attended Rutgers University. He then transferred to Howard University where he received his degree.

Interested in literature, he became a Beat poet rejecting white poetry forms and began creating and influencing black culture and art.  He became well known for his play, Dutchman, in which Baraka was awarded the Obie Award, and then as a result, he started a teaching career at Columbia University. In a piece that Baraka wrote called “The Revolutionary Theater,” he wrote that theater “ ‘should force change, it should be change,’ “ that it “ ‘must EXPOSE! Show up the insides of these humans, look into black skulls. White men will cower before this theater because it hates them’ ” (Klaus 1083). In 1964 he established the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School (BART/S). He became a big influence and inspiration in “black theaters throughout the country” (Holt 679). He wrote essays, plays, poetry, and a “study of black music in America” (679).

When the BART/S theater closed down and Malcolm X was assassinated, he divorced his white wife, moved to Harlem, and established a “Black nationalist view” (Hiltz, Amiri par. 4). Baraka later married Amini Baraka, founded the Spirithouse in Newark, N.J and continued to participate in the Black Arts Movement.

Baraka, in 1974, renewed his perspective by calling “his Black nationalistic” stance racist. His works remain influential, powerful, and controversial.

Works Cited (3)

Hiltz, Virginia and Dr. Mike Sell.  “Amiri Baraka.”  Black Arts Movement. 1998. English Department of the U of Michigan. 29 Mar. 2004 <http;//www. umich.edu/~eng499/people/baraka.html>.

Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. “About the Author: Amiri Baraka.” African American Literature: Voices in Tradition. Austin: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992.

Klaus, Carl. H., et al., eds. “Amiri Baraka.” Stages of Drama: Classical to Contemporary Theater. 5^th ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2003.

The Dutchman by Amiri Baraka

Dutchman is Baraka’s third play. The play is about a black business man who takes the subway and is approached and seduced by a white female prostitute, Lula. She throws him mixed emotions, some of interest and then some of hate trying to tease him to push him over the edge. She continues to make fun of his trying to fit in to be white, that he has assimilated. He remains a reserved respectful individual until finally Lula’s mockingly sarcastic and hateful actions and comments become overwhelmingly insulting and unbearable. The play explicitly portrays the ignorance of the white perspective.

As Baraka stated before that “theater should expose itself,” this is represented throughout the play but especially at the conclusion of the play. Here is an excerpt from the ending of the play, in which Clay finally loses it towards Lula, to demonstrate Baraka’s way of “turning the black man’s insides out”:

You telling me what I ought to do. Well, don’t! Don’t you tell me anything! If I’m a middleclass fake white man . . . let me be. And let me be in the way I want. I’ll rip your lousy breasts off! Let me be who I feel like being. Uncle Tom. Thomas. Whoever. It’s none of your business. You don’t know anything except what’s there for you to see. An act. Lies. Device. Not the pure heart, the pumping heart. You don’t ever know that. And I sit here, in this buttoned-up suit, to keep myself from cutting all your throats. I mean wantonly. You great liberated whore! You fuck some black man and right away you’re an expert on black people [. . .] [Charlie] Bird would’ve played not a note of music if he just walked up to East Sixty-seventh Street and killed the first ten white people he saw. Not a note! And I’m the great would-be poet. Yes. That’s right. Poet. Some kind of bastard literature. . . all it needs is a simple knifethrust. Just let me bleed you, you loud whore, and one poem vanished. A whole people of neurotics struggling to keep from being sane. [. . .]. (Klaus1092)

Clearly, Baraka writes this play dedicated to the truth of black’s experiences of oppression and treatment from the white dominant culture. This play definitely fits the definition of Black Aesthetics.  Baraka uses “strong words.” Pigford states that “The Black Revolutionary Theatre” “instigat[ed] its audience to act in revolutionary and violent ways to overthrow the white-dominated American social order” (par. 3). According to Pigford,  Dutchman “illustrates the persistence of racial tension in the United States in the 1960s and represents an emerging militant attitude on the part of American blacks, and on the part of black American playwrights” (par. 2).

            By reading and analyzing Baraka’s play and learning from other critics, I have gained more sympathy of black history. When I read the play, I feel the emotions of Clay, and I understand Clay’s bold reaction. By practically throwing the message at whites, this play helps anyone of any culture or race sympathize, understand, appreciate, and see the true beauty and the “black” truth in African- American literature.

“Ka ‘Ba” by Amiri Baraka

            In this particular poem, Baraka emphasizes beauty of African-Americans:

We are beautiful people 

with African imagination

full of masks and dances swelling chants

with African eyes, and noses, and arms,

[ . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . ]   (Lines 9-12)

Baraka instills African-American pride in the poem. As opposes to Sonia Sanchez’s poem, “Song No. 3,” Baraka is proud of his ethnicity and culture. The young narrator in “Song No. 3,” which will be discussed shortly, seems embarrassed of her skin color and as a result is insecure. Despite the treatment of the dominant culture towards the black culture, Baraka boasts the inner and outer beauty whereas Sanchez’s narrator hopes for a better day. The point is that they both express their history and feelings with different perspectives. What’s great about this is that a reader may identify with the perspective he or she feels comfortable with and become influenced and moved by the writer’s style and message.

            Baraka also includes historical struggles through vivid images such as the “closed window.” The “closed window” represents the white dominant culture excluding them treating them indifferently as slaves. Another vivid image that represents African American struggles is the “dirty courtyard.” With the careful choice of words, the reader can see the chaotic picture of black screaming, calling, and walking in a limited and dirty space.

            The poem ends with the following:

[. . .] We need magic

                        now we need the spells, to raise up

                        return, destroy, and create. What will be

                        the sacred words?  (lines 20-23)

By ending the poem like this, Baraka has provided a need for change, that sacred words will end the oppression and racism. The ending is basically a dream that the slave hopes for a better day. It sounds superstitious probably due to the fact that at one time African-Americans didn’t have the same opportunities as whites for education, so they adopted superstitious beliefs. On the other hand, the last four lines could simply be a metaphor for change. Baraka cleverly uses this technique to involve the reader to force them to really think about these issues.

Works Cited (4)

Klaus, Carl. H., et al., eds. “Dutchman.” Stages of Drama: Classical to Contemporary Theater. 5^th ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2003.

Maria Gillan et al, eds. “Ka ‘Ba.” Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry. NY:Penguin, 1994.

Piggford, George, "Looking into Black Skulls: Amiri Baraka's Dutchman and the Psychology of Race." Modern Drama XL No. I  (Spring, 1997): 74-82. Contemporary Literary Criticism. 20 April 20, 2004 <http://www.galenet. com/servlet/GLD/hits?NA=Baraka+Amiri&TI=Dutchman&n=10&BY=&DY=&NT=&SU=&TX=&u=CA&u=CLC&u=DLB&r=s&origSearch=true&o=DataType&l=r&c=1&locID=txshracd2589&secondary=false&t=KW&s=1>.

Biography of Sonia Sanchez

            Sonia Sanchez was born in Birmingham, Alabama, attended New York University and Hunter College in New York City, and currently is a professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

            Sanchez is considered “one of the most influential female Black authors of the BAM” (Hiltz, Sonia par.1). She wrote several pieces of poetry and plays. Her plays consist of themes relevant to “the BAM including love, beauty, time, change, history, and music (par. 2).

Sonia Sanchez defines her work by stating “I write to tell the truth about the Black condition as I see it. Therefore I write to offer a Black woman’s view of the world.” (Holt 684).  To achieve this, she believes that her work as well as other black authors should use the real “language, dialect, [and] idioms, of the folks we believe our audience to be” (684). She also includes themes of “black identity ad pride” (684). She is careful in portraying “stereotypes that Black women faced in the 1960s and 1970s” (Hiltz, Sonia par. 3).

Not only does she write “against racism,” but she also writes about sexism. She “warned that ‘If we’re not careful, the animosity between black men and women will destroy us” (Holt 684).

Works Cited (5)

Hiltz, Virginia and Dr. Mike Sell.  “Sonia Sanchez.”  Black Arts Movement. 1998. English Department of the U of Michigan. 29 Mar. 2004 <http;//www. umich.edu/~eng499/people/sanchez.html>.

Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. “About the Author: Sonia Sanchez.” African American Literature: Voices in Tradition. Austin: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992.

Song No. 3 by Sonia Sanchez

            This play definitely uses black dialogue such as “cain’t, fo, wuz, and cuz, as a way to demonstrate the beauty and uniqueness of black language and dialect. The effect of the realistic dialogue causes the reader to hear a black voice of a young girl, and one can almost imagine the small girl right beside the reader reciting this poem.

One of the themes Sonia Sanchez portrays in this poem is obviously the history of African-Americans. They had to deal with prejudice issues in how African-Americans were perceived of their skin color. The reader also gets a sense of hopefulness at the end of the poem. This hopefulness or “the dream” is the common ideal that African-Americans share in their history. The dream is instilled in the message of the play in lines 15-16: “but, one day I hope somebody will stop me and say / looka here, a pretty little black girl lookin’ just like me” (111). Sanchez includes the feelings and struggles as a black girl growing up in society, and that is probably why she dedicates this poem “for 2^nd and 3^rd grade sisters.” Growing up and becoming exposed to the real world, they will experience isolation, insecurity, and oppression while holding on to the dream that one day someone will recognize their beauty.

Works Cited (6)

Maria Gillan et al, eds. “Song No. 3.” Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry. NY:Penguin, 1994.

Biography of Maya Angelou

Born in April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, she began as “a Creole cook, a street car conductor, a cocktail waitress, a dancer, a madam, and an unwed mother”  (“Maya” par.2). Later she became “a successful singer, actress, playwright, an editor for an English-language magazine in Egypt, a lecturer and civil rights activist, and a popular author of five collections of poetry and five autobiographies” (par.2)

Angelou is also thought of “as one of the great voices of contemporary black literature and as a remarkable Renaissance woman”  (“Maya” par .3). Once friends including James Baldwin began hearing her childhood and life experience growing up, she started producing books. Her life consisted of a shifting back and forth of living between Stamps, Arkansas, where her grandmother lived who owned and ran a store, and St. Louis, Missouri, “where her worldly, glamorous mother lived.” One of the autobiographies she wrote is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a story “of her life up to age sixteen” (par. 3).

According to this web-site, Sidonie Ann Smith states from Southern Humanities Review that “Her genius as a writer is her ability to recapture the texture of the way of life in the texture of its idioms, its idiosyncratic vocabulary and especially in its process of image-making” (par. 3).

Works Cited (7)

 “Maya Angelou.” AALBC.com Home.  1997-2004. 19 Apr. 2004 <http:aalbc.com/authors/ maya.htm>.

I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou writes a novel of a portrait of herself. Just before her graduation was ruined by the dominant culture, Henry Reed cited the following during his graduation speech:

We have come over a way that with tears

                        has been watered,

                        We have come, treading our path through

                        the blood of the slaughtered.  (184)

This poem spoke to Maya Angelous’s soul,and she felt “on the top again”. She thought to herself, “I was no longer simply a member of the proud graduating class of 1940; I was a proud member of the wonderful, beautiful Negro race”  (Angelou184).

Not only does the words of the graduation speaker, Henry Reed, speak to Angelou’s soul as well as other individuals, but the words of Angelous’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings also speaks to African-Americans as well as other ethnic groups. It provides a comprehensive true and African-American experience. This novel preserves African-American culture, struggles, and history. Again, it also touches on the idea that “black is beautiful. So although Maya Angelou may not be categorized in the BAM literature, she still employs the major themes and deserves to be recognized as a contributor to the BAM.

Works Cited (8)

Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. NY: Bantam, 1969.

Conclusion

Overall, it’s important to look for history, struggles and injustices, black aesthetics, ethics and aesthetics, and to look at the unique features that each unique writer contributes in order to achieve a voice to promote change and inspire others. More themes include “black pride, black power, and black strength.”  (Oettinger). Also Sonia Sanchez includes themes of “love, beauty, time, change, history, and music” (Hiltz, Sonia par. 2).

I have gained a better perception in reading black literature relevant to the BAM. Because of the powerful influence of this time, this movement was a way to inspire African Americans to write. There were so many important figures that wrote to contribute the BAM that I had to narrow down to three important and popular African American writers.

I learned that when looking at a poem from this movement, it’s not always easy to find distinguishing features. However, as I read each piece of literature more than once, I could vicariously experience the feelings and emotions coming from the powerful messages of the African-American history and culture. The contributors to the BAM really give a sense of powerful and moving language. It’s interesting to explore their different styles in the way they express the themes. Baraka was more in your face, Sonia Sanchez was genteel and fresh, and Maya Angelou was more comprehensive, of course, and shocking but more tame than Baraka’s writing.

I think that Baraka had the most powerful language among the contributors that I researched about. His black pride, emotions of anger, a powerful and influential voice, and a need for change are all evident in his writing. It’s no wonder that he is one of the leaders for the BAM. I would like to continue reading more of his literature.

After speaking with Dr. Oettinger, I agreed with several of his statements. I was glad he said that although scholars categorize authors, authors probably do not categorize themselves, and that’s why I chose Maya Angelou as one of the contributors. She may not even think of herself as a contributor, but any African-American who shares their real experiences through any form of contemporary literature is suitable as a BAM contributor.

As a literature major, I found my research helpful. I would like to continue learning each discipline of the BAM, but I would like to learn about the art as my next journey of exploration. I like art just as much and find it fascinating. I would like to go to the Heritage Art Gallery in Houston to observe and learn about the art of the Black Arts Movement, and I would also like to personally meet Robbie Lee, the main coordinator of the museum. During some free time, I would like to explore the museum to gain new insights and experiences.