Research Guides: Black History Month: Black History Month 2024: African Americans and the Arts

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Explore resources that support the theme for Black History Month 2024, African Americans and the Arts.

Black History Month 2024: African Americans and the Arts

This year's Black History Month theme is African Americans and the Arts. According to ASALH:

"African American art is infused with African, Caribbean, and the Black American lived experiences. In the fields of visual and performing arts, literature, fashion, folklore, language, film, music, architecture, culinary and other forms of cultural expression, the African American influence has been paramount. African American artists have used art to preserve history and community memory as well as for empowerment. Artistic and cultural movements such as the New Negro, Black Arts, Black Renaissance, hip-hop, and Afrofuturism, have been led by people of African descent and set the standard for popular trends around the world. In 2024, we examine the varied history and life of African American arts and artisans."

Learn more about this year's theme:

Black History Month 2024 Activities and Events

ASALH Black History Month Virtual Festival
ASALH will hold innovative virtual programming throughout the month of February celebrating the 2024 Black History Month theme: African Americans and the Arts.
Boston Public Library: "Black Is..." Reading List
The Boston Public Library's "Black Is..." reading list is a list of books published in the previous year for all ages concerning the African American experience. This list is part of the Boston Public Library's annual observance of Black History Month. Explore the list for this year, as well as past years.
Boston Public Library: Celebrate Black History Month
Celebrate Black History Month with activities and events from the Boston Public Library!
City of Boston: Black History Month
There are plenty of ways to celebrate Black History Month in the City of Boston throughout February. You can find information on events happening in Boston, related City of Boston initiatives, and much more.
Massachusetts Black History Month Events
See events going on around the state of Massachusetts for Black History Month. Includes activities both in Boston and around the state!
Smithsonian: Black History Month February 2024: African Americans and the Arts
Celebrate Black History Month with Smithsonian events, resources, exhibitions, and podcasts. The 2024 theme is "African Americans and the Arts" spanning the many impacts Black Americans have had on visual arts, music, cultural movements, and more.

Important Note

On this guide we have included some resources that we recommend, but are not available through the MCPHS Libraries. For these resources, we have set up the links to redirect to the Boston Public Library, as many members of the MCPHS community are able to use their resources. If you are not able to use the Boston Public Library, feel free to find these resources at your own library!

Want to sign up for a Boston Public Library eCard? Learn to do so here. Not eligible for a Boston Public Library eCard? Find these items in your local library in WorldCat.

Books

Visionary Women Writers of Chicago's Black Arts Movement

Online Exhibits

National Museum of African American History and Culture: Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures
Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures explores the past, present, and future of this dynamic concept in an exhibition that features the various people, unique themes and radical artistry that have given voice to it. Featuring hundreds of objects and images with several multimedia displays, this exhibition explores the history of Afrofuturist expression and culture through literature, music, art, film, fashion, activism and more.
Google Arts & Culture: African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond
African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era and Beyond presents works dating from the early 1920s through the 2000s by Black artists who participated in the multivalent dialogues about art, identity, and the rights of the individual that engaged American society throughout the twentieth century.
National Gallery of Art: Black Art & Artists in Our Collection
Explore works from Black artists across centuries, mediums, and geographies, ranging from 19th century still life painter Robert Seldon Duncanson to modern and contemporary pieces by Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, Alma Thomas, Sam Gilliam, Kara Walker, Hank Willis Thomas, and more.
Smithsonian American Art Museum: African American Art
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.
NYPL: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division
The Art and Artifacts Division collects, documents, preserves, and interprets art and artifacts by and about peoples of African heritage throughout the world. Fine and applied art and material culture objects from the seventeenth century to the present are collected, with emphasis on the visual arts of the twentieth century in the United States and Africa.
Google Arts & Culture: Beat by Beat
This interactive online exhibit was created as a celebration of 50 years of hip hop in collaboration with The Kennedy Center, The Bronx County Historical Society, The Museum at FIT, The National Museum of African American History and Culture, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Hip Hop Education Center, and HipHop2020 Archive.

Streaming Videos from the MCPHS Libraries

The Amazing Nina Simone
She was left out of Civil Rights history, erased by jazz critics, and forgotten by most Americans because no one knew how to categorize her greatness. But throughout the 1960s, Nina Simone was both loved and feared for her outspoken vision of Black Freedom. Her musical proclamations like "Mississippi Goddam", and her iconic style created an alternative voice that continues to empower with its unrelenting appeal for justice. Now, a new documentary reveals the real Nina Simone through over 50 intimate interviews with those who best knew the artistry and intentions of one America's true musical geniuses. With new insights into her journey from Classical Music and the segregated American South, Nina's legacy is chartered all the way to the South of France where she finally found freedom.
Jazz
Jazz has been called the purest expression of American democracy; a music built on individualism and compromise, independence and cooperation. Ken Burns follows the growth and development of jazz music from the gritty streets of New Orleans to Chicago's south side, the speakeasies of Kansas city and to Times Square.
Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child
Director Tamra Davis pays homage to her friend in this definitive documentary but also delves into Basquiat as an iconoclast. His dense, bebop-influenced neoexpressionist work emerged while minimalist, conceptual art was the fad; as a successful Black artist, he was constantly confronted by racism and misconceptions. Much can be gleaned from insider interviews and archival footage, but it is Basquiat's own words and work that powerfully convey the mystique and allure of both the artist and the man.
Style Wars
When director Tony Silver and co-producer Henry Chalfant delivered the broadcast version of their prize-winning film to PBS in 1983, the world received its first full immersion in the phenomenon that had taken over New York City. The urban landscape was physically transformed by graffiti artists who invented a new visual language to express both their individuality, and the voice of their community. In STYLE WARS, New York's ramshackle subway system is their public playground, battleground, and spectacular artistic canvas. As MC's, DJ's and B-boys rock the city with new sounds and new moves, we see street corner breakdance battles turn into performance art.

Videos to Check Out from Your Local Library

Summer of Soul (...or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
In his acclaimed debut as a filmmaker, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson presents a powerful and transporting documentary, part music film, part historical record, created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture, and fashion. Over the course of six weeks in the summer of 1969, just one hundred miles south of Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park). The footage was largely forgotten, until now. This documentary shines a light on the importance of history to our spiritual well-being and stands as a testament to the healing power of music during times of unrest, both past, and present. The feature includes concert performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, The 5th Dimension, and more.
Through a Lens Darkly
The first documentary to explore the role of photography in shaping the identity, aspirations and social emergence of African Americans from slavery to the present, Through a Lens Darkly probes the recesses of American history by discovering images that have been suppressed, forgotten and lost. Bringing to light the hidden and unknown photos shot by both professional and vernacular African American photographers, the film opens a window into lives, experiences and perspectives of Black families that is absent from the traditional historical canon. These images show a much more complex and nuanced view of American culture and society and its founding ideals. Inspired by Deborah Willis's book Reflections in Black and featuring the works of Carrie Mae Weems, Lorna Simpson, Anthony Barboza, Hank Willis Thomas, Coco Fusco, Clarissa Sligh and many others, Through a Lens Darkly introduces the viewer to a diverse yet focused community of storytellers who transform singular experiences into a communal journey of discovery – and a call to action.
Black Art, In the Absence of Light
At the heart of this feature documentary is the groundbreaking "Two Centuries of Black American Art" exhibition curated by the late African American artist and scholar David Driskell in 1976. Held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, this pioneering exhibit featured more than 200 works of art by 63 artists and cemented the essential contributions of Black artists in America in the 19th and 20th centuries. The exhibit would eventually travel to the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the Brooklyn Museum. The film shines a light on the exhibition's extraordinary impact on generations of African American artists who have staked a claim on their rightful place within the 21st-century art world.

Black History Month

Podcasts

Online Resources: Artistic and Cultural Movements