Black Arts movement

 movement was a controversial literary faction that emerged in the mid-1960s as the artistic and aesthetic arm of the Black Power movement, a militant political operation that rejected the integrationist purposes and practices of the Civil Rights movement that preceded it. The Black Arts movement was one of the only American literary movements to merge art with a political agenda. Because poems were short and could be recited at rallies and other political activities to incite and move a crowd, poetry was the most popular literary genre of the Black Arts movement, followed closely by drama. Poet, playwright, activist, and major figure of the Black Arts movement, Amiri baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones) coined the term Black Arts when he established his Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School in New York City's Harlem. Although the Black Arts movement began its decline during the mid-1970s, at the same time as the Black Power movement began its descent, it introduced a new breed of black poets and a new brand of black poetry. It also inspired and energized already established poets like Gwendolyn brooks and Robert hayden. The Black Arts movement created many poetic innovations in form, language, and style that have influenced the work of many of today's spoken word artists and socially conscious rap lyricists.

The poets most often associated with the Black Arts movement include Baraka, Sonia sanchez, Etheridge knight, Nikki GIOVANNI, Larry Neal, Mari Evans, Don L. Lee (now known as Haki MADHUBUTI), Carolyn Rodgers, Marvin X, Jayne cortez, Askia Toure, and June Jordan. A number of important African-American playwrights, fiction writers, and scholars also made significant contributions to the Black Arts movement, creatively as well as philosophically and theoretically, by defining and outlining the objectives and criteria of the movement and its "black aesthetic."