I mostly collect non-fiction but I have picked up fiction books and short stories by black authors recently. A few authors you guys can check out (some you may know):
Maya Angelou
James Baldwin
Toni Cade Bambara
Edwidge Danticat (she's Haitian-American and writes beautifully)
Ralph Ellison
Lerone Bennett, Jr.
Arna Bontemps
Octavia Butler
Arna Bontemps
Frank London Brown
Sterling A Brown
Charles Waddell Chesnutt
John Henrik Clark
Eugenia W. Collier
Arthur P. Davis
John P. Lewis
Paul Lawrence Dunbar
Rudolph Fisher
HOyt W. Fuller
Ernest J. GAines
Loyle Hairston
Martin J. Hamer
Chester Himes
Langston Huges
Zora Neale Hurston
LeRoi Jones
Jennifer Jordan
William Melvin Kelley
John O. Killens
Claude McKay
James Alan McPherson
Paule Marshall
Albert Murray
Carl Ruthven Offord
Ann Petry
Rosemarie Robotham
John Caswell Smith
Mary Elizabeth Vroman
Alice Walker
Richard Wright
Frank Yerby
A lot of my examples are not recent authors. It is definitely difficult to find quality these days at least to my standards. I want to mostly learn rather than get lost in a story, which I enjoyed in my youth.
To be honest, we're mostly at fault as black people. How? We need to foster our individual gifts and talents among ourselves. No one is going to appreciate what we do more than we would ourselves. We will not get the credit that we deserve in this society, not to the degree that others would be appreciated. I've experienced this firsthand. When I got to shows that have artwork that is predominantly done by black people, I see very few black people in attendance. We have to be our greatest supporters if we want to be seen as an independent force to be reckoned with. With my poetry and my art, I want people to, first and foremost, THINK, and to see things in a way that they can immediately relate to, even if it repels them. I want to incite dialog. Does this work? No. I end up with white folks trying to relate to strictly Afrocentric themes that they never get the point of and black people saying things to the effect of, "I like your work, it's deep/makes me think/etc." Then they walk away because they either don't want to think about it any more or they don't know what to say. I don't make "feel-good" work. If I did "standard black art" perhaps I would get more of a response. We are all put on this earth for different things. I wasn't put here to placate the masses. I was put here to say something with my art; to convey a message that is bigger than myself. One that is easily understood, even if it is not readily accepted. One that would plant the seed of change and transformation into a searching yet confused soul and ground it.
I am an artist and it has become one of my main goals to not only collect black art but to give voice to the rich history. It's a very recent history. Back when the law of the land was to hold my ancestors in chattels, their creative ingenuity wasn't considered or acknowledged. We can only access what has managed to slip through the sands of time. When I did my last exhibition I wrote out my artist statement with ideologies that were fostered by my childhood and spiritual explorations as an adult. Imagine my surprise when I got to studying black artists back from the early to mid 20th century that a lot of the things and themes I explored they explored also. I came to a common ground with them without even knowing them. I feel the same way about many black authors and artists of substance...their writing touches and speaks to me. Art is subjective, but let's face it. You know when someone's spoon-feeding you bullcrap.
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