Black Aesthetic movement

Black Aesthetic movement

 or Black Arts movement

Period of artistic and literary development among black Americans in the 1960s and early '70s. Based on the cultural politics of black nationalism, the movement sought to create art forms capable of expressing the varieties of black experience in the U.S. Leading theorists included Amiri Baraka, Houston Baker (b. 1943), and Henry Louis Gates. Don L. Lee (b. 1942), known as Haki R. Madhubuti after 1973, was one of its most popular writers; other notable writers included Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Ntozake Shange (b. 1948). The movement also produced such autobiographical works as The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965; with Alex Haley), Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice (1968), and Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974).