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The 2024 theme for Black History Month is "African Americans and the Arts", celebrating a dynamic culture that has spread worldwide in the arts, music, literature and film . Beginning with "Negro spirituals" and blues music that brought solace to a life of enslavement in the South, other later popular forms of African-American music emerged in urban jazz in New Orleans and Chicago. Meanwhile, the great migration north offered new opportunities for expression and creativity in such movements as the Harlem Renaissance in New York City that also had black music and entertainment at its center.
One of the most important creative periods in black American history, the Harlem Renaissance manifested in mixed-race audiences packing the house to see such musicians as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and Bessie Smith performing in such legendary venues as the Cotton Club and the Savoy Ballroom. In the arts, Aaron Douglas, known today as “the father of Black American art”, brought traditional African techniques into his large scale paintings and murals while legendary sculptor Augusta Savage introduced stunning portraits of black faces and figures to the mainstream art scene. The Harlem Renaissance also brought a new creative energy for African American literature, with a major influence in the writings of author and poet Langston Hughes. His writing encompassed poems, plays, essays, and short stories celebrating African American culture, or taking a bleak look at segregation and racial injustice.
Another emerging author during the Harlem Renaissance was Zora Neale Hurston, who was unafraid of controversy with her great American novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God" -- which touched upon the struggles of black people in America, and the separation between light-skinned and dark-skinned African Americans. From the Harlem Renaissance also sprang intellectuals such as W.E.B Du Bois and Alain Locke who helped usher in the early beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1940s.
By mid-century, popular musical entertainment such as doo wop, soul, R&B and even rock & roll were distinctly developed by the African American community before they hit the American mainstream. Beginning in the 1970's, the same city streets that sparked the Harlem Renaissance were responsible for the hip-hop phenomenon that continues to influence generations of rap artists, dancers and fashion designers worldwide. During this same period, black women writers and poets rose to prominence to become household names including "Beloved" author Toni Morrison, "The Color Purple" author Alice Walker, and "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" author Maya Angelou.
The most recent form of African-American self-expression -- relying on synthesized sounds and sci-fi influences -- is reflected in the Afrofuturist movement most popularly seen in the music of Sun Ra and Janelle Monáe and in such films such as "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever". All told, it's impossible to overstate the influence of the African-American community on modern-day arts and culture. While the struggle for freedom and justice endures at home for many African Americans, the rest of the world looks on at a rich culture that is viewed as uniquely and originally American.
Google Arts & Culture: Black History & Culture
Last year's theme for Black History Month, "Black Resistance", took a look at how African-Americans have fought repression from America's earliest days. From escaping the plantation, to the rise out of poverty and the struggle for equal housing and education to the struggle for voting rights, the resistance lives on even into the 21st century: Beginning with colonial days, an act of resistance struck fear into the hearts of white slave owners in New York City as early as 1712. More insurrections against slave owners would continue right into the mid-19th century. Rebellions in New Orleans, South Carolina and, more famously in Virginia with Nat Turner's rebellion, were all quickly put down. Yet each insurrection helped to strengthen the resolve of black slaves to find any escape route from slavery. By the mid-1800's, Harriet Tubman had proudly earned the nickname "The Moses of Her People" when she helped slaves travel into free states and into Canada and Mexico via the Underground Railroad. Tubman was only one of many who helped establish the secret network of escape routes (with safe houses along the way) which resulted in an estimated 100,000 slaves fleeing to freedom. President Abraham Lincoln would finally make escape routes unnecessary by signing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, as tens of thousands of former slaves joined the Union forces during the U.S. Civil War. In the years following, the infamous "whites only" Jim Crow laws that pervaded African-American life in the post-war period resulted in a form of passive resistance -- as millions moved with the Great Migration north beginning in the early 20th century. In the North, at least, and elsewhere blacks finally found their voice on stage, in sports, in the recording industry, or in the political arena
Black resistance was epitomized in sport stars like Jesse Owens (who brought even the Nazi regime down a notch with his stunning triumph during the 1936 Olympics). In pop culture, singer Billie Holiday kept the black struggle in the national spotlight with her best selling hit, Strange Fruit ("Southern trees bear a strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood at the root.") By the 1960's resistance in the form of the Black Panthers was in counterpoint to the Civil Rights Movement which espoused more peaceful means to the same end. Under the strong leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr. the battle for equal rights extended to not only blacks but for other minorities and the white working poor. Helping to finally end the last vestiges of Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement also gave impetus to inclusion of blacks in the political process that ultimately resulted in the election of the first black US President in 2008. Today, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement together with championing critical race theory in public schools continues the long and deep legacy of African-American resistance that is ongoing.
Did African-American Slaves Rebel? PBS Historicist Black Resistance in the US Freedom, Resistance, and the Journey Toward Equality Black History Month first originated as part of an initiative by writer and educator Dr. Carter G. Woodson, who launched Negro History Week in 1926. Woodson proclaimed that Negro History Week should always occur in the second week of February — between the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Since 1976, every American president has proclaimed February as Black History Month. Today, other countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom also devote an entire month to celebrating black history. The Web is a great place to find out more about that history — in poetry, literature, the arts, sciences, sports and entertainment — making Black History Month a time of fun, celebration, and learning.
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 Perhaps you know James Earl Jones as the voice of Star War’s Darth Vader or as Mufasa in the Lion King. He has been laden with Tony, Emmy and Obie Awards. People look at him today and see a confident actor with a deep, resonant voice. The next time you see him, look deeper .... |
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History Channel - Black History Month - Great coverage with the complete TV schedule as well as online biographies, great speeches, video clips, Web exclusives, related resources.
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