BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT

Protests in the US after George Floyd’s death have inflamed the media around the world. After more than a week of protests and urban guerrillas, the States found themselves once again living with the problem of racial discrimination and many citizens, peacefully and otherwise, took to the streets to express their desperation in the face of a situation that is gripping America practically from the beginning of its history.

The demonstrations were accompanied by Black Lives Matter, an international activist movement, born within the African American community and committed to the fight against racism, widespread on a socio-political level, towards people of color. In addition to the legitimate protests related to the civil issue, however, the anti-racist movement also finds its roots in other currents, especially the artistic one: this is the case of the Black Arts Movement, a current that belongs to the wider Black Power movement, founded in Harlem in 1965 by the writer and activist Imamu Amiri Baraka

Obviously the two things do not go hand in hand but belong to a social discontent perpetuated over the decades, which has helped to combine political struggle with art, and social anger with artistic expression. The rebellion takes place mainly in the streets, but it is important to know that in the popular American neighborhoods the creativity of the black community has gradually given rise to a very influential creative awareness within the anti-racist committees.

Not surprisingly, Time has recognized the Black Arts Movement as “the most talked about movement in the history of African-American literature, if not all of American literature”.

Between writing, design, art and creativity more generally, this cultural movement has accompanied the protests of the African-American community and transported the desperation regarding racial themes onto canvases, walls, books and theatrical stages, with the aim of transmitting a message “Multi-faceted” in the American collective consciousness.