The Black Arts Movement in Cleveland

By the early1960's civil rights organizations formed and protested throughout the country.  Led by leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights movement used non-violence to provoke conflict with white southerners in order to bring about federal intervention.  The early goals were to gain the political and legal rights.  When both the civil rights act and voting act passed in 1965, many in the African American community were beginning to push for social and economic equality as well.  The right to open housing, better schooling, and decent jobs became the platform for African Americans seeking social and economic equality.  The rise of the Black Power movement mirrored inner city violence around the country.  “Between 1965 and 1970, more than 500 urban uprisings galvanized a new generation in the struggle for black liberation.” [1]  As the civil rights movement took shape and gained in strength and number in the 1960's, northern cities gradually fell into the rubric of desegregation and violence.  As a result, the city of Cleveland was faced with the dilemma of inner city violence and segregation.

[1] Komozi Woodard, A Nation within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) & Black Power Politics, (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999), xiii. (Hereafter cited as Woodard).