The Kathryn J. DuFour Law Library celebrates Black History Month with the installation of an exhibit honoring this year's theme, African Americans and the Arts.
Several books focusing on the arts are available for download from the law library. Full access to these titles is available by scanning the QR code in the display or clicking on the links in the gallery below.
Also, check out a collection of biographies of African American lawyers. The books will be displayed throughout the month of February.
"African American art is infused with African, Caribbean, and the Black American lived experiences. In the fields of visual and performing arts, literature, fashion, folklore, language, film, music, architecture, culinary and other forms of cultural expression, the African American influence has been paramount. African American artists have used art to preserve history and community memory as well as for empowerment. Artistic and cultural movements such as the New Negro, Black Arts, Black Renaissance, hip-hop, and Afrofuturism, have been led by people of African descent and set the standard for popular trends around the world. In 2024, we examine the varied history and life of African American arts and artisans."
Read more here - https://asalh.org/black-history-themes.
“This work documents & analyzes Hoyt Fuller's profound influence on the Black Arts movement. Using historical snapshots of Fuller's life & activism as a means to rethink the period, it provides a fresh take on the general trajectory of African American literary, & cultural, studies as the field developed over the course of two explosive decades in the mid-twentieth century.”
“This anthology engages questions about origins of the Black Chicago Renaissance (1930-1955) from wide-ranging disciplinary perspectives. It traces a foundational stage from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition to onset of the Depression.”
“With a majority of examples taken from marginal film forms, such as shorts and B movies, the book highlights their role in disseminating alternative images of racial and gender identities as embodied by dancers - images that were at least partly at odds with those typically found in major Hollywood productions.”
“Signaling such recent activist and aesthetic concepts in the work of Kara Walker, Childish Gambino, BLM, Janelle Monáe, and Kendrick Lamar, and marking the exit of the Obama Administration and the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, this anthology explores the role of African American arts in shaping the future, and further informing new directions we might take in honoring and protecting the success of African Americans in the U.S.”
“The book narrates the Nicholas Brothers’ soaring careers, from Cotton Club appearances to film-stealing big-screen performances. The book documents their struggles against the nets of racism and segregation that constantly constrained their careers and denied them the recognition they deserved.”
“Lanita Jacobs analyzes a decade of Black standup comedy to understand 'realness' and 'real Blackness' as a cultural imperative in African American culture. By consciously valuing a 'real' - as opposed to strict notions of 'the real' (which too often essentialize, objectify, and exclude) - this book reveals why authenticity matters to African Americans.”
“Through its analysis of film, drama, fiction, visual culture, poetry, and other cultural -artifacts, Black Cultural Production after Civil Rights offers a fresh examination of how the historical paradox by which unprecedented civil rights gains coexist with novel impediments to collectivist black liberation projects.”
Come by the law library to learn more about the "Divine Nine". Brief profiles of each of the member organizations is displayed.
“The National Pan-Hellenic Council, affectionately known as the “Divine Nine,” is composed of the following member organizations (listed in order of their founding):
According to the National Museum of African American History & Culture: