The Arts of Breaking Colonization

The Influence of the Civil Rights Movement

For many years, African Americans have experienced devastating circumstances of enslavement, racism, segregation, and colonization. Colonization refers to the systemic domination, oppression, and exploitation of African Americans by the white people of society. Due to these circumstances, African Americans were no longer seen as human to the white people of society and, therefore, were denied their equal and human rights. However, in the mid-1950s, Rosa Parks, a key figure who sparked the Civil Rights Movement when she refused to give up her seat to a white person on a segregated bus, Martin Luther King Jr., who advocated for this movement, as well as many others, allowed for African Americans to demand and obtain their fundamental human rights, we see this through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Acts of 1965.

Now that African Americans have their equal and human rights, it was time for them to express and represent those rights and show everyone what they are made of through the Black Arts Movement and Blaxploitation films.

The Black Arts Movement began in the mid-1960s and was a cultural and artistic movement that paved the way for black artists to celebrate and continue to fight for their freedom, expression, and empowerment. This celebration was expressed through intellectual literature, film, music, and poetry and often had themes of activism, which challenged African Americans' status as colonized people within the United States. This movement was unique because its target audience was middle-class and higher-educated African Americans.

However, shortly after the Black Arts Movement, a type of film called Blaxploitation films was on the rise. Blaxploitation films were a genre of film that contained black protagonists who were portrayed as strong and empowered characters through themes of black power and identity that challenged African Americans' status of colonization in the United States. Not only did the Black Arts Movement fight for the freedom, expression, and empowerment of African Americans, but so did Blaxploitation films; however, they expressed it through culture and entertainment while targeting a working-class African American audience.

Sonia Sanchez of the Black Arts Movement

Sonia Sanchez was a key figure of the Black Arts Movement by being a poet and playwright who wrote short stories, critical essays, children's books, and books of poetry. One of her books of poetry called Homecoming (1969) contained many significant poems like the one on the right. This poem by Sonia Sanchez is titled "poem," and is a clear representation of black freedom, expression, and empowerment. This is because first, she is speaking to the dcs 8th graders and saying that she is black, beautiful, and has someone who looks at her face and smiles, which encourages the 8th graders to feel comfortable, loved, and appreciated regardless of their skin color making them feel empowered for how they look and how unique they are. Next, when she states, "on my face are black warriors riding in ships of slavery," she honors the strength and resilience of African ancestors who endured slavery and fought for freedom. Next, she references Malcolm X, who was a prominent civil rights leader, by saying, "Malcolm spitting his metal seeds," which highlights the power of his words and ideas during the Civil Rights Movement because his powerful words were dismissed by the "country of sheep." Moreover, she again makes a call out to the 8th graders, stating, "we are black beautiful, and our blackness sings out," promoting unapologetic pride in black identity and aesthetic. Lastly, her line, "while American wanders dumb with her wet bowels," critiques America as they are ignorant and do not aim to understand the experiences, struggles, and importance of representation, freedom, and empowerment of African Americans. Overall, this poem was a declaration of black pride, expression, freedom, and empowerment to remind people to rid of the colonization of African Americans and to appreciate black aesthetic and identity because it is not going away.

However, the Black Arts Movement had a middle-class and higher-educated African American audience, particularly those in urban areas who were exposed to the political activism of the Civil Rights Movement. This is because many of the leading figures of the Black Arts Movement were highly educated, with their intellect being expressed through their art, which was deeply rooted in African American culture and the fight for cultural and political identity influenced by the Civil Rights Movement. Furthermore, many of these artists and their work were connected to academic institutions, where their work was promoted and taught. By targeting the middle-class and higher-educated African Americans, black power and pride through the Black Arts Movement was reflected through a more intellectual lens where they represented self-determination, political activism, and resistance through sophisticated literature, poetry, music, film, and art that created an elite space of individuals.

This perspective is similar to blaxploitation films because both movements have a similar goal of achieving black freedom, expression, and empowerment through artistic means, but differs by blaxploitation films showcasing black freedom, expression, and empowerment through urban storytelling aiming at working-class African Americans.

All in all, the Black Arts Movement fought for black expression, freedom, and empowerment while targeting middle-class and higher-educated African Americans to challenge their status as colonized people within the United States.

Cotton Comes to Harlem

Cotton Comes to Harlem was a significant blaxploitation film written by Chester Himes and directed by Ossie Davis. This film starts out as two detectives, Coffin Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jaques) and Grave Digger Jones (Godfrey Cambridge), investigate Reverend Deke O’Malley’s (Clavin Lockhart) fundraiser for his Back to Africa crusade because they suspect him of swindling Harlem residents of their money. Suddenly, armed gunmen interrupt and steal 87,000 dollars of raised money, and the rest of the film is Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones trying to track down the culprit and recover the money to Harlem residents. This blaxploitation film effectively portrays black freedom, expression, and empowerment. Black freedom was exhibited in the film by challenging systemic inequalities by revealing the neglect of black communities by white city officials. Black expression was exhibited in the film by portraying Black life in Harlem, a historically significant city with African American neighborhoods. It also features a distinct soundtrack full of soul and funk music, further representing their culture and identity. Lastly, the film exhibited black empowerment by having two strong black leads play the protagonists to help the people of Harlem. Overall, blaxploitation films portray the uniqueness and consciousness of black life, where they are building their own identities and fighting for their rights and struggles as a way to rid themselves of the colonization of their past.

However, blaxploitation films had a working-class African American audience; this is because the working-class African Americans wanted to reject the dominant white culture and assert their own identity and power. This craving for individuality and recognition was influenced by the Civil Rights Movement and was exhibited in blaxploitation films because many of these films depicted the lives of the working class, highlighting their struggles and everyday life. Furthermore, many of these films were filmed on a low budget and were shown in urban theaters, which made it more accessible for working-class African Americans to watch them. Lastly, blaxploitation films were advertised through posters and radios to reach working-class African Americans. By targeting the working class of African Americans, black power and pride through blaxploitation films were reflected through a more urban lens where they represented black individuals as protagonists and heroes and depicted their unique culture and interactions in their daily lives.

This perspective is similar to the Black Arts Movement because both movements have a similar goal of achieving black freedom, expression, and empowerment through artistic means, but differs by the Black Arts Movement showcasing black freedom, expression, and empowerment in a more intellectual way, that depicts and fights for the current political and social problems while targeting the middle-class and higher-educated African Americans.

Overall, blaxploitation films fought for black freedom, expression, and empowerment while targeting working-class African Americans to challenge their status as colonized people within the United States.

Brains vs. Action: A Comparative Look at the Black Arts Movement and Blaxploitation Cinema

The Black Arts Movement and blaxploitation films both influenced and represented changes made by the Civil Rights Movement. The Black Arts Movement and blaxploitation films were both a movement of art, representing the uniqueness of African Americans. As mentioned before, the Black Arts Movement focused on African Americans' freedom, expression, and empowerment through art that exhibited activism and intellect. However, blaxploitation films still focused on the freedom, expression, and empowerment of African Americans but through culture and entertainment that exhibited black identity and power.

First, the Black Arts Movement emerged as inspiration from the Civil Rights Movement, where African Americans could finally lift themselves from their oppression and rise to the challenge of colonization. Even though the Black Arts Movement was seen as unfinished, it still significantly impacted African Americans and how they could speak their truth through literature, theater, film, music, and poetry. The truth is spoken in the play Dutchman by Amiri Baraka / Leroi Jones.

The play starts on a subway train in New York City. Clay, an African American male well dressed in a three-buttoned suit and striped tie, is sitting alone on the train with a magazine in his hand. Suddenly, Lula, a white woman wearing summer clothes and sandals, enters the train, sits next to Clay, and initiates a light and flirty conversation with him.

"Lula: Weren't you staring at me through the window? At the last stop? Clay: Staring at you? What do you mean? Lula: Don't you know what staring means? Clay: I saw you through the window...if that's what it means. I don't know if I was staring. Seems to me you were staring through the window at me.” (Jones 6-7).

After a while of light, flirty conversation, Lula suddenly begins to challenge and confront Clay with provocative remarks in an attempt to expose the deeply ingrained racism that she contains and projects onto him that pushes him into an emotional and psychological corner.

"Lula: What’ve you got that jacket and tie on in all this heat for? … A three-button suit. What right do you have to be wearing a three-button suit and striped tie? Your grandfather was a slave, he didn't go to Harvard… 'Cause you crawled through the wire and made tracks to my side. Clay: Wire? Lula: Don't they have wire around plantations? Clay: You must be Jewish. All you can think about is wire. Plantation didn’t have any wire … everybody on 'em was grooved to be here. Just strummin’ and hummin’ all day.” (Jones 18-19).

These lines are significant because Lula gradually expresses her racist ideologies by teasing him because he is wearing a buttoned suit and striped tie, and mentions that he has no right to wear something like that because his grandfather was enslaved and did not go to Harvard. This remark from Lula deeply symbolizes how she and the white community look down on African Americans where their past influences their present having them suppressed into oppression making it harder for African Americans to succeed.

She then adds fuel to the fire when more white people enter the train, and Lula says that Clay is afraid of white people because she assumes that he escaped slavery and crawled through the wire of the plantation and onto the white side. But Clay assures her that there was no wire of the plantation, and it was a whitewashed place like heaven, and everyone forced to be there was humming all day, and that’s how the blues was born. This is symbolic in that we know Lula has a dehumanizing perception of African Americans as if they were animals, but Clay mentions that the people in slavery, despite their oppression, were humming to create the blues that represents their voice that was silenced.

Next, she starts dancing around and wants Clay to dance with her.

Lula: Come on, Clay … let's do the thing. Uhh! Uhh! Clay! Clay! You middle-class black bastard. Forget your social-working mother for a few seconds and let's knock stomachs. Clay, you liver-lipped white man. You would-be Christian. You ain't no nigger, you're just a dirty white man. Get up, Clay. Dance with me, Clay.” (Jones 29-31).

As she is doing this, she provokes and tries to control him by using derogatory language and dismissing his identity by saying he is a dirty white man and not an African American with a unique culture. She also says let’s knock stomach repeatedly throughout this play, representing her superficial and distorted understanding of black culture. As Lula is making a fool out of herself, Clay tries to maintain calmness and dignity, but he must confront his frustrations with the white-dominated world.

“Clay: You don't know anything except what's there for you to see. An act. Lies. Device. Not the pure heart, the pumping black heart. You don't ever know that… They say "I love Bessie Smith." And don't even understand that Bessie Smith is saying, "Kiss my ass, kiss my black unruly ass." … Before love, suffering, desire, anything you can explain, she's saying and very plainly, "Kiss my black ass." And if you don't know that, it's you that's doing the kissing.” (Jones 34-35).

This line is significant because Clay finally has had enough and confronts this false narrative of his culture and community by fighting for freedom, expression, and empowerment when he mentions that Lula does not know anything about him, about his black beating heart that represents his deep culture and history. Anything that she does know is full of lies for the white community to have domination over the black community. He then mentions that Bessie Smith, who was a blues and jazz singer whose songs represented the struggles of poverty, racism, and sexism, was singing for black people because many white people say they love her songs but do not understand that Bessie Smith is not singing for them.

Finally, after his long and meaningful speech that Lula has no interest in understanding, he sits down on the chair, bends across Lula to grab his belongings, and says, "Sorry, baby, I don't think we could make it." (Jones 37). While he is doing that, Lula brings about a small knife and plunges it two times into his chest and says, "Sorry is right. Sorry is the rightest thing you've said. Get this man off me! Hurry, now! Open the door and throw his body out. And all of you get off at the next stop." (Jones 37).

This ending to the play was very significant in that when Clay says that he is sorry, that was the only thing that Lula heard/understood from him, like his whole confrontation was nothing and meant nothing, and this was clear when he was silenced by the knife of the oppressor and dehumanized by throwing him out of the train.

Overall, this play exhibits the freedom, expression, and empowerment of African Americans by first identifying the root of the problem of why they have to fight for their own freedom, expression, and empowerment in the first place. The root of the problem is that racism is deeply anchored in the minds and bodies of the white community, where it is flowing through their veins in which they cannot shake. Furthermore, this play shows freedom, expression, and empowerment by representing intellect and activism; this is because the play has intellectual concepts of history, especially when Clay mentions Bessie Smith and the talk of Uncle Tom. However, activism is shown toward the end when Clay confronts Lula and fights for his rights and that of other African Americans.

However, blaxploitation films are similar to the Black Arts Movement in that they fought for the freedom, expression, and empowerment of African Americans, but they did this through culture and entertainment that exhibited black identity and power.

The film Shaft by Gordon Parks was a significant blaxploitation film that expressed African Americans' freedom, expression, and empowerment through culture and entertainment. Shaft by Gordon Parks stars the protagonist John Shaft (Richard Roundtree), a private detective for the streets of Harlem, New York, with a tough and cool demeanor. John Shaft is hired by a local crime boss, Bumpy Jonas, to find and rescue his daughter, Marcy. Marcy has been kidnapped by a rival gangster by the name of Gus, and since they are rivals, Gus is trying to take over Bumpy's territory, and he does this by kidnapping his daughter as leverage. Through John Shaft's investigation, he explores the world of Harlem, where he must navigate the dangers of corrupt cops, underworld power struggles, and street criminals, but it is not a worry for him because John Shaft possesses abilities of street smarts, charisma, and toughness that make him perfect for the job. Towards the end of the film, John Shaft confronts Gus through a gunfight and finally rescues Marcy.

Through the protagonist role of an African American saving a girl that was kidnapped and the depiction of African American culture by the soundtrack of soul and funk music, it was a perfect representation of the goal of blaxploitation films, and that was to exhibit freedom, expression, and empowerment for African Americans through culture and entertainment that exhibits black power and intellect. Black freedom was exhibited in this film because John Shaft had the ability to be a protagonist, which inspires black individuals watching this film to do the same and control the narrative in their lives. Black expression was exhibited in this film by having a funky and soul soundtrack, the overall city of Harlem that was a culturally significant place, and the leather outfits that John Shaft would wear, represents the African American lifestyle and culture. Lastly, black empowerment was exhibited in the film because the protagonist of this film was an African American who rescues a girl from her kidnapper, which differs from usual films of white individuals being protagonists and African Americans as the antagonists.  This is significant because African Americans can feel uplifted while having a voice. Moreover, the film Shaft enables these attributes of African Americans through culture and entertainment because most of the blaxploitation films were made to exhibit the culture and lifestyle of African Americans because their culture and appreciation have been misunderstood and neglected for so many years. Blaxploitation films were a form of entertainment for black audiences to finally see themselves on the big screen. With both culture and entertainment being expressed, we see a display of black identity and power, which was imperative for African Americans to obtain because they had not had it before.

Not only does the film show the freedom, expression, and empowerment of African Americans, but the production and ability to make such a film also represent this, as Gordon Parks exclaims...

This deems the creation and viewing of these films a powerful tool for African Americans to uplift themselves and express their culture while also using it as a weapon against the racism and struggles of African Americans. Overall, this film was significant because it represents the vision of blaxploitation films, highlighting ideas of black freedom, expression, and empowerment within African Americans through the culture and entertainment that exhibits black identity and power.

All in all, the Black Arts Movement and blaxploitation films were an upbringing from the Civil Rights Movement, and to represent this upbringing, the Black Arts Movement and blaxploitation films, both enabled the freedom, expression, and empowerment of African Americans to free them of the colonization of their past but in different ways. The Black Arts Movement enabled the freedom, expression, and empowerment of African Americans through activism and intellect, as we see in the Dutchman play by Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones). In contrast, blaxploitation films enabled the freedom, expression, and empowerment of African Americans through culture and entertainment that exhibits black identity and power, as we see in the film Shaft by Gordon Parks.

Summary

During the late 1960s and into the 1970s, African Americans started the Black Arts Movement and created blaxploitation films, which was influenced by the Civil Rights Movement. Both movements similarly fought for black expression, freedom, and empowerment to challenge their status as colonized people within the United States but differed in their approach. The Black Arts Movement focused on the freedom, expression, and empowerment of African Americans through art that exhibits activism and intellect through figures of Amiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchez. Dutchman by Amiri Baraka boldly addressed racial tension and struggles of African Americans, while Sonia Sanchez's poem celebrated black identity and resilience. Also, the Black Arts Movement appealed to the middle class and higher educated African Americans. In contrast, blaxploitation films focused on the freedom, expression, and empowerment of African Americans through culture and entertainment that exhibited black identity and power through figures of Chester Himes and Gordon Parks. Cotton Comes to Harlem by Chester Himes provided on-screen African American heroes, challenged stereotypes, and expressed cultural identity through the unique soundtrack and storytelling, while Shaft by Gordon Parks offered empowerment through the representation of African American culture, entertainment, and protagonist roles of African Americans, primarily appealing to the working class of African Americans. Both movements, despite their different method, were imperative in confronting the colonization of African Americans as a way to rid of it and reinforce their cultural identity.