Black Arts Movement Artists

To response to the ideology of Black Power, Black Arts Movement, as opposed to artwork simply created by an African American artist, signified the only relevant artistic production in the struggle for African American self-determinacy. Therefore, Black Art rejects the "art for art's sake theory" in favor of advancing art's sociopolitical influence in the re-definition of African American identity. Black artists, aimed to challenge the white standard aesthetic value system, voiced their own black culture and express ideas from the point of view of racial and ethnic minorities was not valued by the mainstream to display the distinction of black identity. Like other Black Art Movement activists, Toni Morrison internalizes the main concerns of the aesthetic. She writes about black oppression, consciousness and tradition. Morrison’s major characters are black and they are in constant search for their ethnic identity. Morrison tackles the destructiveness of double-consciousness in The Bluest Eyes. She does not avoid painful and complicated themes in her novels about black experience, and she also chooses stylistic devices that are faithful to her African-American heritage. Morrison implicates the importance of her culture by reflecting black traditions of storytelling and black spoken dialogs. Similar to Morrison, black artists in BAM displayed the ideologies and perspectives of art that center on black culture and life, and strengthen black ideals, solidarity, and creativity. They against the institutional racism that through educational system, popular culture and production of items that only cater to the whites. Black artists tried to open a new era that gives more space to individuality and diversity and against the community as a whole has accepted the Western values and considers differences from it a flaw. In Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes, Pecola and Claudia remain a meaningful contrast to each other in facing the problem of Eurocentrism. 

Aunt Jemima and the Pillsbury Doughboy, 1963

Aunt Jemima and the Pillsbury Doughboy, a Jeff Donaldson’s oil painting, portrays the confrontation Donaldson envisioned. Appropriating icons of American consumer culture, the painting not only portrays a confrontation between Aunt Jemima and the Pillsbury Doughboy, but also enacts a confrontation with popular media imagery responsible for furthering racist stereotypes. Donaldson's depiction of Aunt Jemima subverts the docility and subservience associated with this image of black womanhood. Though the Pillsbury Doughboy (a figure of oppression in the painting) restrains Aunt Jemima, her defensive stance and fierce expression indicate that she will not concede defeat. Moreover, Aunt Jemima’s statuesque figure implies that she holds the upper-hand in a contest of strength with her oppressor. Pitting The Pillsbury Doughboy against Aunt Jemima, Donaldson is simultaneously “identifying the enemy” and asserting black America's strength to overcome racist oppression and challenge the power of white supremacy. Notably, the subversive nature of Aunt Jemima and the Pillsbury Doughboy extends to the American flag as well. The strips of the flag in the painting's background are bent in an angle reminiscent of a swastika. Challenging the notions of democracy and freedom associated with the American flag, Donaldson is drawing a jarring connection between American racism and the recognized atrocities of Nazism since the destructiveness of the white beauty standard to the African American community is significant. The most notable victim is Pecola in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes, who is deeply affected by the illustrations of white beauty around her and believes that she is ugly and desires to “be Mary Jane,” becoming insane at the end due to the society’s assuming of her ugliness. The Black Arts concepts struggled to abandon Du Bois’s idea of double-consciousness since blacks were constantly struggling toward the white culture’s ideals, even though the dominant society disabled them from reaching the white standard of beauty. Mirroring themselves against value structure of the oppressive white society was depriving the blacks of their empowerment. Jeff Donaldson wanted to concentrate on solving the problems of the African-American community from the inside, developing awareness of the rich black heritage and gearing the community to realize its worth. The Black Art Movement leaded the time for blacks to stop internalizing the image of being inferior in the society as a whole and asserting the strength, beauty, and self-esteem of blacks. Preventing the tragedy of Pecola, black artists built up black’s own brand—Aunt Jemima to confront the white standard beauty figures of “Mary Jane” and “Shirley Temple”. Jeff Donaldson claimed the "next level of struggle would [have to be] confrontational," to be black themselves and to love themselves, but not to “be Mary Jane” and “love Mary Jane” (50). The Black Art movement leaders tried to liberate blacks from the limitation of white beauty standard and the fallacy that people’s value depend on their looks.

Polarization, Claude Clark

Polarization presents the condition, names the enemy, and directs a plan of action. Depicting a black man arm wrestling Uncle Sam, Claude Clark presents African American life in opposition to white America; he specifically identifies the American government as the "enemy," and he points to direct confrontation as the mode of socio-political struggle. While Polarization portrays a confrontation still in action, Clark's iconography foreshadows the "American" victor. Linking African American's struggle for civil rights with the American Revolution, the American flag placed on the "side" of the black man indicates his eventual victory over the "monarchy" of white America (the crown beneath Uncle Sam's bench). Toni Morrison reveals the destructiveness of white authority by excerpting sentence from Dick and Jane. Like Uncle Sam, Dick and Jane are also the creations of the white society that determines the material values and desirable appearance for everyone. The blacks do not have public representation in the society. There were no reading assignments about black children who live in poverty. This manifestation of institutional racism contributes to the black characters’ personal prejudices, increasing their feeling of insecurities and ugliness. The Black Art Movement aimed to change black’s situation by fight against the standard aesthetic value set up by white people and “towards a plan of action in search of our own roots and eventual liberation" (Claude Clark).

If I Were Jehovah, 1970

This painting is an assertive revision of African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar's most noted poem "We Wear the Mask."

We Wear the Mask
Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but O great Christ, our cries
To Thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh, the clay is vile
Beneath our feet and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask.

As depicted in the painting If I Were Jehovah, the "mask" African Americans historically used to shield the depth of their emotions in a racist society is being ripped away in a full expression of outrage and determination. The “mask man” in the painting rejects the white authority and tries to abandon the double-consciousness. Similar to Claudia in Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes, the “mask man” does not wish to be white, but hate the western ideal and “desires to dismember it” (20). The “mask man” and Claudia recognize the institutional racism around the: the mass media bombards the black community with white images of beauty, making it harder for the minority to maintain its own identity and worth since no public presentations of black ideals or role models are available. Like Claudia, the activists in the Black Art movement rebelled to white institution and took off black’s mask.

Black artists in the movement tried to distinct black culture by using African motifs and musical beats in their art works, and they have profoundly changed what and how America sees--in the images that flare on the canvas as well as those that flicker on the large and small screen. 

Gordon Parks peeked through photographic and cinematic lenses to record the travail of Black life. In the photo “Children with Doll,” the two children represent different attitude to the white doll, just like Pecola and Claudia in The Bluest Eyes. One is addicted to the white doll and wants to become white girl, and one hates and rejects white standard beauty. While Pecola drowns herself of ugliness and worthiness and becomes a victim of the white standard of beauty, Claudia rejects the western ideal and in somewhat rebels like the Black Art movement activists.

Black artists used Abstract Expressionism and social protest--and brushes, pens, invented materials and found objects--to fashion the textures and colors of a new Black humanity that challenged racial stereotypes.

                                               Jazz: (N.Y.) Savoy--1930s, Romare Bearden

Humanity shines in Romare Bearden's collage, Jazz: (N.Y.) Savoy-1930s, which treats the most majestic music Black folk have created. Bearden achieves the sense of sound and rhythm associated with jazz through irregular spatial relationships and intense lights and darks. As in the music, what appears random—a face here and instrument there—coheres into a structured whole. To portray black ethnic voice like Bearden does, Toni Morrison uses old, black storytelling traditions in The Bluest Eyes to convey an authentic African-American experience. Morrison uses the call-and-response style of communication that initiates from the time of slavery. She continuously changes her focalization with narrative and writes non-chronological revealing of Pecola’s story, aiming to resemble African-American storytelling. Through the methods of black storytelling, Morrison gives a voice to several silenced issues of oppression.

Black artists and writers like Toni Morrison in Black Arts Movement were both trying to challenge the authority of white value system and injecting new diverse voices of minority. Their rebellion not only dealt with the racial issues but also changed the dominant white culture situation to a new multicultural era.

Scout & Claudia: A Childlike Analysis of Racism

Both Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Scout and Claudia both, in some part, narrate and share their perspective of racism.  Scout lived in Jim Crow infiltrated Maycomb, Alabama,  while Claudia lived in Lorain, Ohio.  Regardless of locations, these children are profoundly affected by racism, Scout through the trial of Tom Robinson and Claudia  through her own discriminating environment and the life of Pecola Breedlove.  Scout Finch is a mere 9 years old for the majority of the novel and Claudia MacTeer is also the same age.  Their own simplistic views of racism play a pivotal role in their lives.  


It is critical that both Toni Morrison and Harper Lee both choose a child to narrate part of their stories.  The complex issue of racism can be broken down and analyzed, effectively, from the perspective of a child.  The simplicity in which Claudia and Scout narrate their stories provide an concise and innocent perspective on how appalling racism truly is.  Claudia's depiction of Pecola Breedlove's desire for blue eyes is harrowing and rivets the emotions of the reader into complete despair for her.  Scout's perception of Tom Robinson's trial entails how innocent Tom really is and how he lost his life to Jim Crow harbored racism.  Frieda's desire to know the beauty behind the doll is the same simplistic way in which Scout ponders with why everyone is so upset with Tom Robinson and her father.  Through the uncorrupted perspective of a basic mind, both Lee and Morrison argue that racism is not as complex as usually perceived.

Pecola asks, ”‘What’s a suit?’” Maureen responded, “‘It’s when you can beat them up if you want to and won’t nobody do nothing” (68). The plot of To Kill a Mockingbird is the conviction of Tom Robinson, and innocent black man being accused of the rape of a white woman.  Atticus, Scout’s father, is defending Tom Robinson to the best of his ability, trying to defy the racist foundation of Maycomb. A law suit, Morrison argues, is an excuse to “beat up” or further strip African Americans of power.  The ultimate conviction of Tom Robinson supports the predominance of racism in the Jim Crow Era.  The complexity of the legal system is being perceived through the simplistic eyes of Scout.  While the justice system is filled with corruption, manipulation, and adult situations, Harper Lee suggests that the conviction can be best understood through a child.  On the most basic of levels, it is evident that Mayella is not a victim of Tom, but that Tom is the victim of something else.  On multiple occasions throughout the novel, Scout has thoughts of why this is happening and why is everyone so angry at her father.  Atiicus' decision to represent Tom to the best of his abilities is no mystery for Scout.  The enigmatic situation is in the adult imposed court where Tom is ultimately deemed guilty.  Scout, Jem, and Dill, all children, endured the testimony of Mayella Ewel and Tom Robinson.  Tom Robinson is being accused of raping Mayella, when in fact, Mayella's father, Bob Ewell, did the physical and sexual harassment (203-226).  Atticus Finch, sometimes referred to as a "negro lover", is trying to fairly represent Tom Robinson.  Atticus is not only up against the allegations of Bob and Mayella Ewell, but also the deeply entrenched racist citizens of Maycomb. During the trial, speaking of his kids Atticus says, " hope and pray that I can get Jem and Scout through it without bitterness, and most of all, without catching Maycomb’s usual disease” (100).  The "usual disease" that Atticus speaks of can be applied to Toni Morrison's concept of beauty in The Bluest Eye.

Claudia is not oblivious to racism, but perceives the discrimination, not as a black vs. white, but as a ugly vs. beauty.  Looking at situations in terms of ugliness and beauty is far less complex than the perspective of prejudiced adults.  Thus it is key that Morrison chooses Claudia, a character who physically tries to find the secret behind beauty, to narrate her story.  A instance in which Claudia attempts to discover the discrepancy, and ultimately the reasons behind racism, is when she dismembers the dolls. She says, "I had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me" (20).  Why is this doll so cherished and "dear" to everyone? The "beauty" in the doll is not in stitching however, it is in the complex system in which adults have implemented value into the white doll.  Like the judiciary system in To Kill a Mockingbird, beauty, Morrison argues, is a corrupt and complex ideal that ultimately leads back to racist roots in what is aesthetic and what is not.  The idea of ugliness is evident in Pecola's life, “the master had said, “‘You are ugly people.’” They had looked about themselves and saw nothing to contradict this statement” (39).  The Breedlove's complacency in their "ugliness" epitomizes the impact of racism in America during the 1940's.  "The master" symbolizes the racism that deems Pecola Breedlove "ugly" and racism keeps Pecola from "contradicting" the notion. Claudia dissects racism as terms of beauty and ugliness because the concept of racism is too complicated for her.  Morrison argues that the simplification of racism is possible through the innocence of a child.