Social Justice and the Black Community: Arts & Culture

In this primary source set, students will view original photographs, listen to oral history recordings, and read historical texts to gain a better understanding of of the lives and experiences of Negro League baseball players.
Between the end of the Civil War and 1890, some African American baseball players played alongside white players in minor and major leagues. After 1890, Jim Crow segregation dominated the sport until Jackie Robinson integrated major league baseball in 1947. Consequently African Americans formed their own professional baseball leagues commonly and collectively known as Negro League baseball. During its heyday in the 1920s and 30s, the Negro Leagues drew large crowds and fielded over thirty teams throughout the East Coast and Midwest.

Explore the history, arts, and culture of Black experience in the United States

The Paris Exposition of 1900 (Exposition universelle internationale de 1900) devoted a building to matters of "social economy." The United States section of the building featured an exhibit that, according to W. E. B. Du Bois, attempted to show "(a) The history of the American Negro. (b) His present condition. (c) His education. (d) His literature."

This set of primary sources highlights the multi-media visual art of this era, which vibrantly celebrates African-American and African history and culture. Additionally, the visual art created by African-American artists of the Harlem Renaissance sometimes offers subtle criticism of the status of African-Americans in the United States at that time.

The Black Arts Movement started in 1965 when poet Amiri Baraka [LeRoi Jones] established the Black Arts Repertory Theater in Harlem, New York, as a place for artistic expression. Artists associated with this movement include Audre Lorde, Ntozake Shange, James Baldwin, Gil Scott-Heron, and Thelonious Monk. Records at the National Archives related to the Black Arts Movement primarily focus on individual artists and their interaction with various Federal agencies.

SAAM is home to one of the most significant collections of works by African American artists in the world.
These artworks span three centuries of creative expression in various media, including painting, sculpture, textiles, and photography, and represent numerous artistic styles, from realism to neoclassicism, abstract expressionism, modernism, and folk art. From a rare group of photographs by early African American studios to an important group of works by self-taught artist Bill Traylor to William H. Johnson’s vibrant portrayals of faith and family, to Mickalene Thomas’s contemporary exploration of black female identity, the museum’s holdings reflect its long-standing commitment to Black artists and the acquisition, preservation, and display of their work.

From National Museum of African American History & Culture

Christopher Paul Curtis’s historical novel The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 (1995) is unique because it deals directly with how racism traumatized youth. A beautiful yet tragic coming-of-age story, The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963, shows how a young boy, Kenny, is traumatized after witnessing the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. At first Kenny is unaware of the severity of the racism in Birmingham, his grandmother’s hometown, when his family journeys there to keep his older brother Byron out of trouble. He soon realizes that despite some progress toward equality, many Americans are still resistant to the concept of racial integration. Through the support of his family, Kenny overcomes his trauma and matures into a wise young man. This primary source set provides background information on race relations in Alabama during the 1960s, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing, and civil rights activism in the South.

Although the origins of blues music are difficult to trace completely, the blues movement is said to have grown from African American song and culture throughout the South. Women were an influential part of this development with several female blues singers driving the movement throughout the United States. In 1920, Perry Bradford brought Mamie Smith into the spotlight with her performance of “Crazy Blues,” which was the first commercial blues record ever recorded. The influence of Mamie Smith, Bessie Smith, Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, and Ida Cox can still be heard in more contemporary artists like Toni Braxton, Gladys Knight, and others.