Authors Ishmael Reed, Eugene Redmond, Askia Toure

H-AfrArts Authors Ishmael Reed, Eugene Redmond, Askia Toure, Kalamu Ya Salaam, Tarika Lewis, Mona Lisa Saloy speak on the Black Arts Movement at Dillard University's BAM Conference, September 9-11, 2016

Discussion published by Kim McMillon on Saturday, April 30, 2016

New Orleans Black Arts Movement Conference-Southern Style at Dillard University is taking place, September 9-11, 2016: 1) to extend knowledge on this significant period in Black American arts, identity, and literature; 2) to celebrate, interrogate, and welcome forerunners, legacy builders, and inheritors of it. The conference is designed to educate the faculty, students, and the public about the contributions of the South, the very heart of the Black Arts Movement. Why does that matter? Without the South, the heart of the Black Arts Movement, there would be no Black Arts Movement. The Civil Right and Black Power Movements gave birth to the Black Arts Movement, and that birth took place in the South.

The history of the Black Arts Movement is considered to have begun after February 21, 1965 when Amiri Baraka moved from Manhattan to Harlem to establish the Black Arts Repertory Theatre after the assassination of Malcolm X. The west coast saw the emergence of the Black Panther Party and the Black Power Movement, and authors Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Nathan Hare and others developed the first Black Studies Department at San Francisco State University. In this mix, many of the important contributions of the South were overlooked. And yet, the South was home to authors Thomas Covington Dent, Nikki Giovanni, Toni Morrison, Askia Toure, Pearl Cleage, Jerry Ward, Eugene Redmond, Kalamu ya Salaam, the Free Southern Theatre, the beginnings of the Black Panther Party, and the Black Power Movement.

The emphasis of this conference is the South because of its rich legacy of literature and social activism. If you ask the public what the Black Arts Movement was and when it happened, most people will not be able to answer. Yet, (BAM) historian and author Dr. James Smethurst states that “BAM was arguably the most influential U.S. arts movement ever. Certainly no radical cultural movement reached such a large American audience. Black Arts cultural groups, writers or artists workshops, theaters, book stores, study circles, dance companies, schools, journals, small presses, reading series, galleries, museums, and so on, sprouted up wherever there was a black community, large or small.”

The conference will open Friday, September 9 with a historic free evening concert that highlights New Orleans’s history as a music capital while giving homage to the legacy of BAM. Saturday, September 10 will have programming dedicated to the achievements of women during the Black Arts Movement as well as a Theatre Workshop, presentations by John O’Neal, the Founder of the Free Southern Theatre, and other noted playwrights, scholars, musicians, and actors, such as Chakula cha, Ishmael Reed, Tarika Lewis, and Charlotte “Mama C” O’Neal. There will also be academic panels throughout the day.

To register for the conference, please visit www.blackartsmovement.net. The Call for Papers is also

Citation: Kim McMillon. Authors Ishmael Reed, Eugene Redmond, Askia Toure, Kalamu Ya Salaam, Tarika Lewis, Mona Lisa Saloy speak on the Black Arts Movement at Dillard University's BAM Conference, September 9-11, 2016. H-AfrArts. 04-30-2016. https://networks.h-net.org/node/12834/discussions/122007/authors-ishmael-reed-eugene-redmond-askia-toure-kalamu-ya-salaam Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-AfrArts listed on the website for those wishing to present their research.

For more information, please contact Kim McMillon at [email protected].