This selection of materials represents my interest in the ephemeral print culture of the Black Arts movement (BAM), which runs parallel to the Black Power movement, 1965 to 1975. Like other artistic movements of its time, BAM made use of at-hand reproduction technologies to publish poetry, plays, bulletins, pamphlets, newsletters, and broadsides. BAM publishers placed a premium on accessibility and affordability, stressing that their productions were meant to reach everyday people in the community. Those criteria made print ephemera ideal formats for use—and fascinating, if elusive, objects of study for the contemporary collector.
Johari Amini (Jewel C. Latimore). A Folk Fabel (For My People). Chicago: Third World Press, 1969.
Amini’s poem combines Pan-African philosophy, vernacular wordplay, and political critique into a heady mix that is both of and ahead of its time. Local artist Jeff Donaldson—a major BAM figure in Chicago—provides the cover illustration. It alludes to the Apollo 8 mission of 1968, but it looks like it could have been designed for the rise of Afrofuturism decades later.
LeRoi Jones. Black Art. Newark: Jihad Productions, 1966.
Having broken with the Beats after the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, Jones sparked BAM by founding the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School in Harlem. While that project was short-lived, it left Jones a blueprint for grounding BAM institutions in the community. He moved back to his hometown of Newark, where he founded Jihad Productions, which published mimeo pamphlets like this one and LPs. Jones would go by the name (Imamu) Amiri Baraka later in the decade.
In publishing media for everyday use, BAM made sure to bring children and young readers into the fold. This chapbook from Broadside Press has no text or dialogue; the story is told entirely through Thompson’s illustrations. The visuals on their own relate the predicament of a teenager named Frank, but their clean lines and distinct shapes suggest that the work also could have been used as a coloring book.
