Special Collections Research Center presents ‘The Small Press and the Black Arts Movement’

Special Collections Research Center presents ‘The Small Press and the Black Arts Movement’February 12, 2008Pamela McLaughlinpwmclaug@syr.edu

Syracuse University Library’s Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) has mounted an exhibition, “The Small Press and the Black Arts Movement,” on the sixth floor of E.S. Bird Library. The controversial Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s was a politically engaged artistic movement that explored the African American experience.

Drawing on its own holdings, this SCRC exhibition features works by participants in the movement that were published by small independent presses such as Broadside Press and Third World Press. Amiri Baraka (b. 1934) and painter Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) are very well represented. Their works accompany those of other artists, including dramatists, illustrators, novelists and poets. Among the more well-known names are Gwendolyn Brooks, Chester B. Himes, Ishmael Reed, Sonia Sanchez, Melvin Van Peebles, Alice Walker and John A. Williams. Also on display are numerous Black Arts Movement periodicals such as Black Theatre, Hoo-Doo, Kitabu Cha Jua (formerly the Journal of Black Poetry), Soulbook and Y’Bird.

Free and open to the public, the exhibition is available for viewing weekdays (except holidays) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through May 1. Pay parking is available in the Marion visitor lot.