The Black Power Movement of the 1960s and 1970s—a movement for the empowerment of the African-Americans in the United States also ushered in the formulation of a new paradigm of `cultural nationalism' in arts. The black artists adopted a language of radicalism which was a conscious strategic orientation to constitute a community. In trying to formulate a new paradigm for arts, the black artists experimented with new vocabularies, images, and perspectives which were sometimes drawn from their African heritage. Don L Lee's (Haki Madhubuti) poem "The Primitive" employs a language that subverts the whole Euro-American concept of `whiteness' and `civilization.' Amiri Baraka's (LeRoi Jones) poem "SOS," in the nature of an SOS call, employs the rhetorical device of `signifyin' which means `to hint, to put on an act, boast, make a gesture.' This paper discusses how this new aesthetic of the black arts debunked the western paradigm of `art for art's sake.' Poetry of the Black Arts Movement was an important tool for registering protest and creating social awareness among the black masses. It emphasized the functional aspect of art. Amiri Baraka's (LeRoi Jones) iconic poem "Black Art" is a concrete manifestation of this radical aesthetic. One of the radical contributions of this Movement was the identification of literature with identity.

The 1960s was a period of tremendous social ferment. The very mention of the 1960s conjures up images of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. Yet, it was also the decade of the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-War Movement, the Women's Lib Movement, the avant-garde theater, the Black Power Movement, and the assassination of John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King (Jr.). But seldom in history has the struggle for emancipation impacted arts as the Black Power Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. This socio-political struggle for equality ushered in the formulation of a new paradigm of Cultural Nationalism in Arts. For the black artists, this new paradigm of cultural nationalism involved synthesizing the language of opposition and black vernacular English to forge group identity, solidarity, and pride, while at the same time challenging `white' elitist discourse under the rubric of black arts.

Towards the end of the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement of the blacks encountered bitter frustration and violent setbacks. Despite the passage of the 1964 and 1968 Civil Rights Act, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the US government repeatedly refused to enforce the laws of the land. Resistant whites shot, bombed, beat, and viciously harassed black activists and applied cruel economic sanctions to anyone who dared to speak out for citizenship rights. These violent reprisals led eventually to a Black Power revolt. As a political phrase, `Black Power' had earlier been used by Richard Wright to describe the emergence of independent African nations in the mid-1950s. The use of the term in the 1960s began in 1966 with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) workers, Stokely Carmichael and Willie Ricks rediscovering the term. This phrase and the salute of a clenched fist became the new language of radicalism by the African-Americans. Among the most controversial representation of Black Power was the Black Panther Party led by Huey Newton and the Nation of Islam, the most charismatic representation of which was Malcolm X (El-Shabazz). Despite the involvement of many factions, all of them spoke the same language of opposition. In tune with the times, many African-American writers and artists also defined their goals in broadly collective, social, and political terms. They are, in the words of Maulana Karenga, "functional, collective, and committing or committed."

American Literature Journal, Black Arts Movement, Black Power Movement, Economic Sanctions, Cultural Nationalism, Black Power Revolt, Civil Rights Movement, National Liberation, European Forms, Political Mobilization, Strategic Orientations.