In a 1968 essay, "The Black Arts Movement", Larry Neal proclaimed the Black Arts Movement was “the aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power concept”. The Black Arts movement, usually referred to as a 1960s movement, solidified in 1965 and broke apart around 1975. The movement’s major players were Amiri Baraka/Leroi Jones, Adrienne Kennedy, Ron Karenga, Larry Neal, Sonia Sanchez, and many more Black artists at this particular time in American history. This Black intellectual revolution examined and targeted many assumptions in the artistic world, specifically the role of the text, the timelessness of art, the responsibility of artists to their communities, and the significance of oral forms in the struggles of Black folk . This paper will explore several concepts promoted by the Black Arts Movement, in particular, cultural nationalism, the Black Aesthetic and the role of the artist in the community.

Cultural nationalism was founded on the belief that blacks and whites have separate values, histories, intellectual traditions and lifestyles; therefore, in reality, there are two separate Americas. Cultural nationalism was often expressed as an abstract

Larry Neal in his essay, “The Black Arts Movement,” writes, “the Black artist must create new forms and new values... he must create a new history... and must be accountable for it only to the Black people”. Neal goes on to say, “furthermore, [the artist] must hasten his own dissolution as an individual (in the Western sense)”. Neal explains explicitly in this essay that the artist is responsible to his people, to his community and must give up the sense of the Americanized idea of the individual experience. Euro-Americans have tended to view the artist as working in a realm that has little to connection with their communities, with politics, and even with the profit motive. The artist therefore, tends to be celebrated as the epitome of rugged individualism. There is a tendency for artist to think in terms of so-called “universals” as opposed to the very particular experiences and needs of the community from which the artist springs. The concept of the Black artist is that these relations between the community and one's political views are concrete. With many Black Arts Movement leaders developing community-based art theaters and schools (Black Arts Repertory Theater, BlackHouse, SpiritHouse, and several others), attempted to connect the artist and the community and wanted to see the art emerge from the very community where schools and theaters were operated. Also an integral part of the movement was the advocation of the Black artist speaking politically to the community through his/her art. The notion of “art for art’s sake” was reputed a defined as an Euro-American concept not for the Black artist.

The 1960s Black Arts Movement was a cultural revolution that reinvented African-American literature and art. Like its beginn

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