Читать книгу Freedom Facts and Firsts - Jessie Carney Smith - Страница 11

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s was the most significant realignment of American democracy since the American Civil War of the 1860s. The movement asserted a rebirth and a reinvention of black identity and black consciousness as African Americans redefined themselves, while also forcing a reappraisal of white identity and America’s democratic values. The landmark events, songs, speeches, poems, and literature of the period, spanning from the Brown v. Board of Education United States Supreme Court Decision of 1954 to the assassination of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968, are well known.

The art that grew out of the movement is also critical to understanding this tumultuous time. The struggle was waged on two fronts: in the streets and in the realm of images and ideas that proclaimed the awakening of a people in search of self-discovery, self-determination, and selflegitimization. Black artists asked themselves, “What kind of art should a black artist make in these times?” according to Lerone Bennett Jr., and they answered with various artistic responses that embraced the struggle for social justice, racial pride, and the liberation of people of African descent everywhere.

The artwork, in large measure, resounded with propagandistic and reactionary messages. Even so, culturally as well as aesthetically important works were produced by black artists who are well known today, including Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Walter Williams, Betye Saar, Faith Ringgold, Elizabeth Catlett, Benny Andrews, Moneta Sleet, Raymond Saunders, Charles White, Marion Perkins, Richard Yarde, David Hammonds, Wadsworth Jarrell, Gordon Parks, Sam Gilliam, Jeff Donaldson, James Overstreet, and Nelson Stevens, among others. Important groups like Spiral in New York City and AfriCobra in Chicago embodied the spirit and aspirations of blacks and promoted Pan-Africanist ideals.

Much of the art produced by black artists of the period is only now emerging from the shadows of the iconic images of celebrity (Marilyn Monroe and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis) and consumer goods (Campbell Soup Cans and Brillo Pads) favored by pop artists like Andy Warhol and Claus Oldenberg. African American artists responded, in the main, to the events of the period with an art that cast a critical eye on American democracy, much like Faith Ringgold’s The Flag is Bleeding (1967), or addressed the matter of confrontation with authority as depicted in Jeff Donaldson’s Aunt Jemima and the Pillsbury Dough Boy ‘64 (1964). They also celebrated heroes and heroines who embodied in their personal story the struggle for social justice, as did Elizabeth Catlett-Mora in her iconic print Malcolm Speaks for Us (1969). Others, such as the photographer Moneta Sleet, chronicled the times in works like his From Selma to Montgomery (1965) that captured triumphs and tragedies of the period.

Much of the art produced by black artists of the period is only now emerging from the shadows of the iconic images of celebrity.

African American artists turned their easels, cameras, pencils, and pens not only to documenting the movement but also to producing an activist art that expressed and promoted the aspirations of black America. After World War II (1939–1945), African American artists witnessed, documented, and participated in the periodic but steady challenges blacks across the country waged against unjust political and social practices in America. Like all of black America, they witnessed the conflicts that erupted year after year throughout the American South, the legal challenges to racial segregation, the mass boycotts, the student sit-ins, and countless other events that called into question America’s commitment to its democratic creed. And, like black Americans everywhere, they heeded the call for a new vision and a new way of life for black America, and actively enlisted their art in the struggle for social and political change.

Victor D. Simmons