African American artists

It's about the satirical tradition of 'going there.'

Jacob Lawrence was one of twentieth-century America’s most celebrated black artists.

Deemed “the greatest landscape painter in the West,” he achieved rare fame in his day.

Dorsey and Thomas amassed important collections at a time when the future of chattel slavery and Black life hung in the balance of a national quarrel.

Six decades ago, Gordon Parks, Life magazine’s first black photographer, revolutionized what a crime photo could look like.

An abstract expressionist and master of collage, an intellectual and outspoken activist, Bearden evolved as much as his times did.

These rare survivors of early African-American art can illuminate much about our difficult history.

Considering Du Bois' complex ideas on the role of black artists in the struggle against white supremacy.

The mirage of the singer's soaring success echoes the mirage of post-war tranquility at home.

"Big Mama" does what all blues greats do: she telegraphs endurance and force to whomever out there in TV land might need it. This is blues perfection.

The 19th century singer forced critics and audiences to reconcile their ears with their racism.

Why do we dance? African-American social dances started as a way for enslaved Africans to keep cultural traditions alive and retain a sense of inner freedom.

A conversation with some of the hottest filmmakers on the scene: They're young, they're Black, but they're making green.

Black cowboys made up as much as a quarter of working ranch hands during late 19th century. That legacy has been obscured.

The world-spanning art of the Harlem Renaissance.

In the years after her husband John’s death, the harpist discovered a sound all her own, a jazz rooted in acts of spirit and will.

Maria P. Williams pioneered filmmaking for African American women, but her life is even more thrilling than her sole film.

John A. Williams’s unsung novel.

Beginning in 1905, one star-studded song-publishing company would push the aesthetic limits of how Black popular music was shown to the public.

We cannot understand the last fifty years of U.S. history—certainly not the first thing about Black history—without studying the emergence and evolution of rap.