Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

e counted among the people of whom Kgositsile speaks, and samples
of their work are included in the anthology .
There emanates from the book a oneness of tone and of purpose,
if not a uniformity of excellence . ( We find perceptive, well-executed
pieces side by side with carelessly done work whose perceptivity is
marred by an overriding system of rationalization . And there are poems
of every level of artistic sophistication . ) The projection of purpose
and attitude is, however, constant, and is perhaps the strongest feature
of the volume, which, after all, aims at a synthesis of all black art . As
the subtitle states, the anthology is one of black "creations ." An attempt
has therefore been made to give glimpses of the developing black
aesthetic through drawings and through photographs of sculpture,
paintings, black scenes (e .g ., the Wall of Respect, Chicago, 1967) . The
format (8'/z x 5 1/z ) makes it at times difficult to appreciate the illustrations,
which have been scaled down and photographed . Although the
illustrations are interesting, there is by no means as wide a representation
of artists as of writers, and the book must be considered as primarily
a literary anthology with graphic interludes which give it a rare added
dimension .
Brief biographical information, which for the most part seems to
have been written by the writers themselves, given at the beginning of
most of the selections, and photographs of a fair number of the poets,
writers and artists, are also included . These momentary portraits make
it possible for the reader to see the contemporary black artist movement
from still another point of view : the artists come alive as individuals,
each with his distinct personality, though united in purpose .
Books about blackness, written by blacks and published by blacks,
as is this one, represent a still-new phase of beginning for us . The
errors pointed out above (as well as the misprints which crop up now
and then) are things we will rectify with time, because we will only
improve by doing, and this book is a conscious and sincere act of doing.
Although much in it has been previously printed, the collecting, in
book form, of the articles, stories, plays, poems, illustrations and photographs,
will provide wider diffusion for many points well made but not
sufficiently heard, much black soul not yet sufficiently shared . In
volumes such as this, writer and reader are relieved of the strain of
articulating blackness under the tutelage of white publishing houses .
But in the final analysis, neither the weaknesses nor the para-literary
aspects should blind us to the fact that much of what's here is excellent
in its own right, and none of it is irrelevant to us as black people . For
all these reasons, Black Arts is a book well worth reading .
-CAROLYN F. GERALD
In Memoriam
.J~torace C,ar~forc
April 12, 1903 January 22, 1970
Seattle, Washington Paris, France
NEGRO DIGEST March 1970 93