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These essays reflect on national and transnational legacies of African American activism as an element of artistic practice, particularly as they concern artistic expression and race relations, and the intersections of creative processes with economic, sociological, and psychological inequalities.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Visual Foreword: Carrie Mae Weems
Series Editor Foreword: Carmen Gillespie
Introduction: African American Arts in Action
Sharrell D. Luckett
Bodies of Activism
Chapter 1: Trans Identity as Embodied Afrofuturism
Amber Johnson
Chapter 2: Designing Our Freedom: Toward a New Discourse of Fashion as a Strategy for Self
Liberation
Rikki Byrd
Chapter 3: Pearl Primus' Choreo-Activism: 1943-1949
Doria E. Charlson
Chapter 4: Performing New Nationalism/Performing a Living Culture: Josefina Báez’s
"Dominicanish"
Florencia V. Cornet
Chapter 5: Ethnicity, Ethicalness, Excellence: Armond White’s All-American Humanism
Daniel McNeil
Chapter 6: Race and History on the Operatic Stage: Caterina Jarboro Sings Aida
Lucy Caplan
Music & Visual Art as Activism
Chapter 7: “I Am Basquiat”: Tracing Jean-Michel Basquiat's Alterity and Activism in
Paint and Performance
Genevieve Hyacinthe
Chapter 8: “I Luh God”: Erica Campbell, Trap Gospel and the Moral Mask of Language
Discrimination
Sammantha McCalla
Chapter 9: The Hidden Code of the Kongo Cosmogram in African American Art and Culture
Nettrice R. Gaskins
Chapter 10: From Baldwin to Beyoncé: Exploring the Responsibility of the Artist in Society--- Re-envisioning the Black Female Sonic Artist as Citizen
Abby Dobson
Chapter 11: Slaying “Formation”: A Queering of Black Radical Tradition
J. Michael Kinsey
Institutions of Activism
Chapter 12: Centering Blackness Through Performance in Every 28 Hours
Shondrika Moss-Bouldin
Chapter 13: Dancing for Justice Philadelphia: Embodiment, Dance, and Social Change
Julie B. Johnson
Chapter 14: A Conversation with Freddie Hendricks of the Freddie Hendricks Youth Ensemble
of Atlanta
Sharrell D. Luckett
Chapter 15: The Conciliation Project as a Social Experiment: Behind the Mask of Uncle Tomism
and the Performance of Blackness
Jasmine Coles & Tawnya Pettiford-Wates
Afterword: Blackballin'
A play by Rickerby Hinds
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Contributors
About the author
SHARRELL D. LUCKETT is director of the Helen Weinberger Center for Drama and Playwriting and an assistant professor of drama and performance studies at the University of Cincinnati. She is the founding director of the Black Acting Methods Studio, a training program in performance theory and practice.
Summary
These essays reflect on national and transnational legacies of African American activism as an element of artistic practice, particularly as they concern artistic expression and race relations, and the intersections of creative processes with economic, sociological, and psychological inequalities.
