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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT ed or printed. Edited by istribut Verner D. Mitchell Cynthia Davis an uncorrected page proof and may not be d Excerpted pages for advance review purposes only. All rights reserved. This is ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD Lanham • Boulder • New York • London 18_985_Mitchell.indb 3 2/25/19 2:34 PM ed or printed. Published by Rowman & Littlefield An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 istribut www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London, SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2019 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mitchell, Verner D., 1957– author. | Davis, Cynthia, 1946– author. Title: Encyclopedia of the Black Arts Movement / Verner D. Mitchell, Cynthia Davis. Description: Lanhaman : uncorrectedRowman & Littlefield, page proof [2019] and | Includes may not bibliographical be d references and index. Identifiers:Excerpted LCCN 2018053986pages for advance(print) | LCCN review 2018058007 purposes (ebook) only. | AllISBN rights reserved. 9781538101469This is (electronic) | ISBN 9781538101452 | ISBN 9781538101452 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Black Arts movement—Encyclopedias. Classification: LCC NX512.3.A35 (ebook) | LCC NX512.3.A35 M58 2019 (print) | DDC 700.89/96073—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018053986 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America 18_985_Mitchell.indb 4 2/25/19 2:34 PM ed or printed. istribut To the memory of our dear colleague an uncorrected page proof and may not be d Excerpted pages for advance review purposes only. All rights reserved. Dr. Reginald Martin This is 18_985_Mitchell.indb 5 2/25/19 2:34 PM CONTENTS ed or printed. istribut Foreword LaToya R. Jefferson-James xi Preface xix Acknowledgments xxiii Timeline xxv ENCYCLOPEDIA AfriCOBRA 1 Allen, Samuel W. 3 Angelou, Maya 5 Baldwin, James 7 “Ballad of Birmingham” 12 Bambara, Toni Cade 14 Baraka, Amirian uncorrected page proof and may not be d 16 TheExcerpted Black Aesthetic pages for advance review purposes only. All rights reserved. 24 TheThis Black is Arts Movement in Algeria 29 “Black Dada Nihilismus” 34 Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing 38 Black Theatre Issue of The Drama Review 39 Black Theatre Magazine 43 Black Women Writers (1950–1980): A Critical Evaluation 45 Black Women Writers and the Black Arts Movement 46 “Blues Ain’t No Mockin’ Bird” 49 vii 18_985_Mitchell.indb 7 2/25/19 2:34 PM viii CONTENTS Blues for Mister Charlie 51 Broadside Press 57 “A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon” 58 Brooks, Gwendolyn 60 Bullins, Ed 66 Caldwell, Ben 69 The Caribbean Artists Movement 71 Catherine Carmier 79 Childress, Alice 81 Chisholm, Shirley 84 Coleman, Wanda 86 Collins, Kathleen 92 ed or printed. Davis, Angela 97 Deacons for Defense and Justice istribut 100 Dent, Thomas Covington 107 Dodson, Owen 109 Du Bois, W. E. B. 110 Dutchman 112 Evans, Mari 121 Evans-Charles, Martie 123 The Fire Next Time 126 for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf 132 The Free-Lance Pallbearers 134 Gaines, Ernest J. 139 Giovanni, Nikki 141 Gunn, Bill 147 Hansberry, Lorraine 150 an uncorrected page proof and may not be d Hayden, Robert 154 Henderson,Excerpted David pages for advance review purposes only. All rights reserved. 159 This is Hopkinson, Nalo 161 Jordan, June 164 Kennedy, Adrienne 167 Kgositsile, Keorapetse William 171 Knight, Etheridge 173 The Last Poets 176 “The Lesson” 185 Malcolm X 188 18_985_Mitchell.indb 8 2/25/19 2:34 PM CONTENTS ix Malcolm X, Poetry on 194 Marginalization and the Black Arts Movement 195 Marson, Una 201 Milner, Ron 212 “Monday in B-Flat” 215 Morrison, Toni 216 Mumbo Jumbo 223 Music and the Black Arts Movement 225 Neal, Larry 230 Negro Digest / Black World / First World 233 The Negro Ensemble Company 235 No Place to Be Somebody 239 One Day When I Was Lost: A Scenario Based on Alex Haley’s “The ed or printed. Autobiography of Malcolm X” 241 Organization of Black American Culture istribut 242 Polite, Carlene Hatcher 244 Ra, Sun 254 A Raisin in the Sun 259 Randall, Dudley 262 “Raymond’s Run” 263 Redmond, Eugene B. 265 Rodgers, Carolyn 266 Ross, Fran 268 Sanchez, Sonia 275 Sexual Identity and the Black Arts Movement 284 Shange, Ntozake 291 Shepp, Archie 295 The Slave 299 an uncorrected page proof and may not be d Smith, Jean Wheeler 301 TheExcerpted Society pagesof Umbra for advance review purposes only. All rights reserved. 302 This is “Sonny’s Blues” 306 Soul on Ice 311 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 314 Teer, Barbara Ann 317 This Child’s Gonna Live 321 Thomas, Lorenzo 325 Till, Emmett, Poetry on 327 Touré, Askia Muhammad 331 18_985_Mitchell.indb 9 2/25/19 2:34 PM x CONTENTS Tupac Shakur and the Black Arts Movement 333 Understanding the New Black Poetry: Black Speech and Black Music as Poetic References 339 Voodoo Aesthetics and the Black Arts Movement 341 Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine 350 Selected Bibliography 355 Index 359 About the Editors and Contributors 377 ed or printed. istribut an uncorrected page proof and may not be d Excerpted pages for advance review purposes only. All rights reserved. This is 18_985_Mitchell.indb 10 2/25/19 2:34 PM FOREWORD: KEEP THE LAMP BURNING The Longest Shortest Artistic Movement ed or printed. istribut It is time to reevaluate the Black Arts Movement. Over the past four decades, the academic discourse surrounding the Black Power Movement (BPM) and its artistic arm, the Black Arts Movement (BAM), has flattened into a dismissive cliché: it was the shortest literary movement in African American literature, dogged by misogyny and homophobia, and brought to a righteous end by a feminist backlash of the 1980s. Yet the BPM and the BAM remain a source of fascination and inspiration for African American popular culture. On the date of Malcolm X’s birth in 1968, a group of oral poetry performers from New York who called themselves the Last Poets came together and began performing. With drums added for emphasis to the words, their style of music—with the human voice becoming the main focal point— became known as Rhythm and Poetry or what is commonly called RAP. The Last Poets were featured on a song by current rapper Common called “The Corner,” performing a slam piece for that song. Today, rap music and its culture, hip hop, has become youthan uncorrected culture the page world proof over. and There may is not rap be music d in almost every major language,Excerpted including pages Mandarin. for advance In review addition, purposes there areonly. slam All poetryrights reserved.venues in every major Thiscity withis a sizeable black population, and black college students still continue to host these events. In spite of the watering down of mainstream rap as a poetic art form, within respective African American communities, the best rappers are always those who can be considered poets. For example, the world knows TuPac as a rapper, but many African Americans consume his poetry, which is available in print form. The rapper Common was invited to the Obama White House as a poet, not a rapper, and in 2002, rapper Mos Def launched a show in conjunction with Russell Simmons that hearkened back to the BAM roots of rap, Def Poetry Jam, on HBO. It ran for five seasons. Many African Americans also see the best rappers as poets of the underground (those rappers who do not receive much radio play and xi 18_985_Mitchell.indb 11 2/25/19 2:34 PM xii FOREWORD who may not necessarily want it) who can still tell stories, such as Jean Grae. Their styles and the impetus to address people at the grassroots level, come directly from the BAM, particularly from poets like Sonia Sanchez, Jayne Cortez, Nikki Giovanni, and Wanda Coleman. Coleman, though nationally recognized as a poet, electrified audiences with her performances at jazz cafes until her untimely death from breast cancer in 2013. Then, there is that strain of rap music that manifested an undeniable influence of the BPM, the Nation of Islam (NOI), and more specifically, Malcolm X. Like their BAM predecessors, many rappers are heavily influenced by the speeches of Malcolm X, even though he was assassinated before many of them were born. His speeches are still widely available through online music services like Spotify and Tidal, and some entertainers even imitate his style of rimless glasses. Some rap- pers have simply taken speeches of Malcolm X and mixed his voice into a beat. Ice Cube, in his album Predator, which followed the 1992 Los Angeles riots, inserted an excerpt from one of Malcolm’s speeches, warning American blacked people or printed. about the government’s lip service to democracy and its failure to enforce its own laws. Ironically, the insert is simply called “Integration.” In 1988, istributthe rap group Boogie Down Productions released its album, By All Means Necessary. Of course, the title is an allusion to the famous Malcolm X quote “by any means necessary,” which was popularized by a poster in the 1960s. The album cover features the group’s leader, KRS-One, replicating in hip hop clothing the famous picture of Malcolm X holding a gun and protectively watching the street through a window.