Black History Month 2024 – African Americans and the Arts

Various forms of art have long been a source of expression, empowerment, and preservation for Black and Brown people. The theme for Black History Month 2024 is African Americans and the Arts. According to the Association for the Study of African American Life and History’s (ASALH) webpage, this theme recognizes that, “…in fields of visual and performing arts, literature, fashion, folklore, language, film, music, architecture, culinary and other forms of cultural expression, the African American influence has been paramount.” The theme, ‘African Americans and the Arts’ speaks to the blended history of both art and the, “African, Caribbean and Black American lived experiences.”

Historically, forms of Black art have either been appropriated and/or their excellence denied by mainstream culture. Even with the lack of cultural acceptance or a white-washing of Black art, down through the years, Black art has continued as a way to: pass down stories, express individual and communal circumstances, empower others to meaningfully move forward, to convey both beautiful and ugly truths in a ways that brings about justice, and to pause and provide context to what is happening here and now. About his use of art through photography, Gordon Parks stated,

“I suffered first as a child from discrimination, poverty...So I think it was a natural follow from that that I should use my camera to speak for people who are unable to speak for themselves.”

The Association for the Study of African American Life and History chronicles some of the earliest Black art taking place before the American Revolution, at which point, “enslaved Africans of the Lowcountry began their more than a 300-year tradition of making sweetgrass baskets, revealing their visual artistry via craft.” The ASALH speaks to the distress of those in bondage giving birth to the Negro spirituals such as, “All God’s Children Got Shoes,” “Wade in the Water,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” and “There is a Balm in Gilead.” In addition to Negro Spirituals, blues musicians - such as BB King – fostered the development of music that became the core for many other forms of music, inclusive of gospel and soul.

In addition to music, photography, and basket-weaving, literature has been a strong and influential contribution toward Black art. Poets such as Phyllis Wheatley, Langston Hughes, and Audre Lorde are hailed as literary giants. Authors such as Zora Neale Hurston, bell hooks, Alex Haley, Ralph Ellison, and W.E.B. Du Bois are revered for using their lived experiences to pen contributions that spoke to the Black condition. Painters such as Henry Ossawa Tanner and Jean-Michel Basquiat are also known for their contributions.

Black art was seen in full bloom during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and 1930s, the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s, the breakout of hip-hop, and the rise of Afrofuturism – Black history x technology and science (Black Panther). The recognition of African Americans and the Arts as the 2024 Black History Month theme is one that is due its proper respect. May we be ever aware of the ways in which Black art has informed being and created space in our doing.