17 pages • 34 minutes read
Gwendolyn BrooksA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s was informed by contemporary political and social movements in the United States. Beginning in theater and spreading through literature, music, and dance, artists sought to represent African Americans’ unique culture and experiences and amplify the celebratory spirit of Black pride. An inherently political project, the Black Arts Movement resisted the oppressive systems of race-based slavery and Jim Crow laws. By lauding the innovation, persistence, and cultural achievements of Black people in the United States, the movement galvanized audiences toward the end of full economic, social, and legal liberation of Black Americans.
Women artists like Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, and Sonia Sanchez comprised a feminist subsection of the Black Arts Movement. They critiqued male leaders for failing to address the specific plight of Black women, urging them to examine how gender roles and expectations fueled sexist oppression within the movement. Although movement leadership remained dominated by men, the persistence of these vocally-agitated women created a path for future Black feminist voices to be heard.
Cultural critic Larry Neal described the Black Arts Movement as the aesthetic arm of the Black Civil Rights Movement. On Black Arts and Black Power, he wrote: “both concepts are nationalistic.
By Gwendolyn Brooks
A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon
Gwendolyn Brooks
A Sunset of the City
Gwendolyn Brooks
Boy Breaking Glass
Gwendolyn Brooks
Cynthia in the Snow
Gwendolyn Brooks
Maud Martha
Gwendolyn Brooks
my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell
Gwendolyn Brooks
Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward (Among them Nora and Henry III)
Gwendolyn Brooks
The Ballad of Rudolph Reed
Gwendolyn Brooks
The birth in a narrow room
Gwendolyn Brooks
The Blackstone Rangers
Gwendolyn Brooks
The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock
Gwendolyn Brooks
The Crazy Woman
Gwendolyn Brooks
The Lovers of the Poor
Gwendolyn Brooks
the rites for Cousin Vit
Gwendolyn Brooks
To Be in Love
Gwendolyn Brooks
To The Diaspora
Gwendolyn Brooks
Ulysses
Gwendolyn Brooks
We Real Cool
Gwendolyn Brooks