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Black Arts Matter
Scholar's exploration of Black Arts Movement reveals ties to current times

“The people I’m writing about were all about Black Lives Matter back in the 60s and 70s. The issues with policing were very similar to what they are now.” –James Smethurst

James Smethurst is a scholar of 20th-century African American literature, culture and intellectual history and professor in the UMass Amherst W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies. His research and scholarship explore connections between these subjects, and how politics, social relations, and art influence each other. 

Among his research topics is the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, a subject that Smethurst feels has yet to be fully explored.  He says, “There is this notion that the Black Arts Movement was short-lived and not very influential. In some ways, I think it was the most successful, most grass roots, and most consequential arts movement in the history of the United States.”

See the full article here:  https://www.umass.edu/researchnext/spotlight/black-arts-matter