“Behold the Land – The Black Arts Movement in the South” will be a lecture presented to a Kendal audience on Monday, June 6.
James Smethurst, son of Bix and Bill Smethurst, is Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His primary research areas are African-American literature, culture, and intellectual history from the late 19th to the late 20th century, with a particular emphasis on Black cultural and political radicalism.
His June 6th talk will center on elements of the Black Arts Movement from the early 1960s until the early 1980s. Much of the support for the movement to the North and West came from a whole infrastructure of Black Arts organizations, institutions, and events in the South. This deep public support for the work of a people in the process of freeing itself changed our notions of what art is and whom it is for.
James Smethurst earned his Ph.D. in English from Harvard. Prior to joining the U. Mass Amherst faculty, he taught at the University of North Florida.
The talk will be given in the Gathering Room at 7:30 pm.