Behold the Land
The Black Arts Movement in the South
James Smethurst
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 04/2021
Pages: 248
Subject: Social Science, Literary Collections, Art, History
Print ISBN: 9781469663036
eBook ISBN: 9781469663050
DESCRIPTION
In the mid-1960s, African American artists and intellectuals formed
the Black Arts movement in tandem with the Black Power movement,
with creative luminaries like Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni
Cade Bambara, and Gil Scott-Heron among their number. In this
follow-up to his award-winning history of the movement nationally,
James Smethurst investigates the origins, development, maturation,
and decline of the vital but under-studied Black Arts movement in
the South from the 1960s until the early 1980s. Traveling across
the South, he chronicles the movement's radical roots, its ties to
interracial civil rights organizations on the Gulf Coast, and how
it thrived on college campuses and in southern cities. He traces
the movement's growing political power as well as its disruptive
use of literature and performance to advance Black civil
rights.
Though recognition of its influence has waned, the Black Arts movement's legacy in the South endures through many of its initiatives and constituencies. Ultimately, Smethurst argues that the movement's southern strain was perhaps the most consequential, successfully reaching the grassroots and leaving a tangible, local legacy unmatched anywhere else in the United States.
Though recognition of its influence has waned, the Black Arts movement's legacy in the South endures through many of its initiatives and constituencies. Ultimately, Smethurst argues that the movement's southern strain was perhaps the most consequential, successfully reaching the grassroots and leaving a tangible, local legacy unmatched anywhere else in the United States.
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