Black Art (poem)

"Black Art" is a poem written by African-American poet Amiri Baraka. It was written in 1965 after the assassination of Malcolm X, soon after the poet (formerly LeRoi Jones) had taken on a new name.The poem issued a clarion call for art by and for Black people:

We want a black poem. And a
Black World.
Let the world be a Black Poem
And Let All Black People Speak This Poem
Silently
or LOUD

The poem sparked the beginning of the Black Arts Movement in poetry. "Black Art" was published in The Liberator in January 1966, and subsequently re-published in numerous anthologies.