The Black Arts Movement

Afro-Am 691B/660 U-Mass/Amherst
Fall 2000 New Africa House 302
T 12:00-2:30 Profs. Ernest Allen & John Bracey, with Archie Shepp, Nelson Stevens, Esther Terry, & Steve Tracy

Literature critic David Lionel Smith has described the Black Arts Movement thusly:

The Black Arts Movement (BAM), which could be dated roughly 1965-1976, has often been called the "Second Black Renaissance," suggesting a comparison to the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and '30s. The two are alike in encompassing literature, music, visual arts, and theater. Both movements emphasized racial pride, an appreciation of African heritage, and a commitment to produce works that reflected the culture an experiences of black people. The BAM, however, was larger and longer lasting, and its dominant spirit was politically militant and often racially separatist.

This course will examine the Black Arts Movement in its many manifestations, beginning with a discussion of it political and cultural background: the transition from Civil Rights to Black Power in the Afro-American freedom movement of the 1960s; the impact of on African Americans of African decolonization and the spread of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements throughout other parts of the globe; similarly, the cultural influence of African writers-especially through such vehicles as the Société Africaine de Culture and its American counterpart, the American Society of African Culture. Attention will be paid to the music, literature, theater, and the graphic arts of the period, and the aesthetic and political critiques of these artistic forms.

September 12: Background I

Larry Neal, "The Social Background of the Black Arts Movement," Black Scholar 18 (1987): 11-22.

Joanna Schneider Zangrando and Robert L. Zangrando, "Black Protest: A Rejection of the American Dream," Journal of Black Studies 1 (December 1970): 141-59.

David Lionel Smith, "Black Arts Movement," in Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, eds. Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith, and Cornel West, 5 vols. (New York: Macmillan Library Reference USA, 1996), 1:325-332.

September 19: Background II

Arthur P. Davis, "Integration and Race Literature," in The American Negro Writer and His Roots; Selected Papers From the First Conference of Negro Writers,(New York: American Society of African Culture, 1960), 34-40.

Jacques Howlett, "Présence Africaine 1947-1958," Journal of Negro History 43 (April 1958): 140-150.

Samuel W. Allen, "Négritude and Its Relevance to the American Negro Writer," in The American Negro Writer and His Roots, 8-20.

Eugene Walton, "Is Integration a Threat to Negro Culture?," Negro Digest 11 (October 1962): 3-9.

Tom Dent, "Lower East Side Coda," African American Review 27 (Winter 1993): 597-98.

Tom Dent, "Umbra Days," Black American Literature Forum 14 (Fall 1980): 105-8.

Tom Dent, ed., "Umbra Poets, 1980," Tom Dent, Lorenzo Thomas, Askia Muhammad Toure, David Henderson, Calvin Hernton, and Joe Johnson, Black American Literature Forum 14 (1980): 109-14.

Lorenzo Thomas, "The Shadow World: New York's Umbra Workshop and Origins of the Black Arts Movement," Callaloo 4 (October 1978): 53-72.

Lorenzo Thomas, "'Communicating by Horns': Jazz and Redemption in the Poetry of the Beats and the Black Arts Movement," African American Review 26 (Summer 1992): 291-98.

Lorenzo Thomas, "Alea's Children: The Avant-Garde on the Lower East Side, 1960-1970," African American Review 27 (Winter 1993): 573-78.

September 26: Music I

Brian Ward, Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).

Portia K. Maultsby, "Soul Music: Its Sociological and Political Significance in American Popular Culture," Journal of Popular Culture 17 (Fall 1983): 51-60.

October 3: Music II

Amiri Baraka, Black Music (New York: W. Morrow, 1967).

Clovis E. Semmes, "The Dialectics of Cultural Survival and the Community Artist: Phil Cohran and the Affro-Arts Theater," Journal of Black Studies 24 (June 1994): 447-61.

Daniel Walden, "Black Music and Cultural Nationalism: The Maturation of Archie Shepp," Negro American Literature Forum 5 (Winter 1971): 150-54.

Lorenzo Thomas, "'Classical Jazz' and the Black Arts Movement," African American Review 29 (Summer 1995): 237-40.

John D. Baskerville, "Free Jazz: A Reflection of Black Power Ideology," Journal of Black Studies 24 (June 1994): 484-97.

October 10: Poetry I

Patricia Liggins Hill, gen. ed., Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998), 1343-1521

HOLIDAY, Monday, October 9
Follow Monday class schedule on Wednesday, October 11

October 17:

Hill, Call and Response, 1521-1693.

October 24: Poetry III

Joanne V. Gabbin, The Furious Flowering of African American Poetry (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1999). Selections: Kalamu ya Salaam, "Langston Hughes: A Poet Supreme"; Eugenia Collier, "Message to the Generations"; Joyce A. Joyce, "Bantu, Nkodi, Ndungu, and Nganga: Language, Politics, Music, and Religion in African American Poetry"; Jerry W. Ward, Jr. "Illocutionary Dimensions of Poetry: Lee's 'A Poem to Complement Other Poems'"; Amiri Baraka and Askia Touré, "Conversation:"; Gwendolyn Brooks and B. Denise Hawkins, "Conversation:"; Hilary Holladay, "Song of Herself: Lucille Clifton's Poems About Womanhood."

David Lionel Smith, "Chicago Poets, OBAC, and the Black Arts Movement," in The Black Columbiad: Defining Moments in African American Literature and Culture, eds. Werner Sollors and Maria Diedrich, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 253-61.

*FIRST THEMATIC PAPER DUE IN CLASS

October 31: Drama I

Lonne Elder, Ceremonies in Dark Old Men (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969).

Lorraine Hansberry, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, A Drama in Three Acts (New York: Random House, 1965).

James Baldwin, Blues for Mister Charlie (New York: Dell Publishing, 1964).

November 7: Drama II

Amiri Baraka, Dutchman and The Slave, Two Plays by LeRoi Jones (New York: Morrow, 1964).

Ed Bullins, Five Plays: Goin' a Buffalo; In the Wine Time; A Son, Come Home; The Electronic Nigger; Clara's Ole Man (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969).

November 14: Other Literature

Arthur Davis, "Novels of the New Black Renaissance (1960-1977): A Thematic Survey," CLA Journal 21 (June 1978): 457-490.

Amiri Baraka, The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones / Amiri Baraka (New York: Freundlich Books, 1984).

November 21: Graphic Arts

Jeff Donaldson, "The Role We Want for Black Art," College Board Review 71 (Spring 1969): 15-18.

Jeff Donaldson, "10 in Search of a Nation," Black World 19 (October 1970): 80-89.

Selected issues of Drum magazine

Recommended: Samella S. Lewis, Art: African American, 2d, rvsd. ed. (Los Angeles: Hancraft Studios, 1990).

Thanksgiving Recesss: November 23-26

November 28: Theory and Criticism I

Larry Neal, Visions of a Liberated Future: Black Arts Movement Writings, ed. Michael Schwartz (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1989).

December 5: Theory and Criticism II

Ron Welburn, "The Black Aesthetic Imperative," in The Black Aesthetic, ed. Addison Gayle, Jr., (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972), 126-42.

Houston A. Baker, Jr., "Critical Change and Blues Continuity: An Essay on the Criticism of Larry Neal," Callaloo 23 (Winter 1985): 70-84.

Darwin T. Turner, "Introductory Remarks About the Black Literary Tradition in the United States of America," Black American Literature Forum 12 (Winter 1978): 140-147.

Houston A. Baker, Jr., "Generational Shifts and the Recent Criticism of Afro-American Literature," Black American Literature Forum 15 (Spring 1981): 3-21.

December 10: Post-Black Arts Debates and Reverberations

Sigmund Ro, "'Desecrators' and 'Necromancers': Black American Writers and Critics in the Nineteen-Sixties and the Third World Perspective," Callaloo 25 (Autumn 1985): 563-76.

Josef Jarab, "Black Aesthetic: A Cultural or Political Concept?," Callaloo 25 (Autumn 1985): 587-93.

David Lionel Smith, "The Black Arts Movement and Its Critics," American Literary History 3 (Spring 1991): 93-110.

OFFICIAL LAST DAY OF CLASSES: Thursday, December 14

*FINAL THEMATIC PAPER DUE Monday, December 18