What does Black Anthology mean to me? It is not just African “Americans” using their God-given gifts in the field of arts. It is not that waxed poetic ballad that crooned through your radio on Friday nights. Yes, February might be known to many Americans as Black History Month, but Black Anthology is an “American” cultural explosion from the motherland that is ours forever in America.

The seeds of Black Anthology were carefully germinating in the hearts and minds of slaves as they were forced on chains and in slave ships heading to the Americas and Europe. Those seeds were probably one of the only positive thoughts wandering through the minds of those slaves shackled to each other and chained to a ship.

When those slaves arrived at their newly appointed destination, they were treated as property and considered merchandise or units of labor. The triangular trade of cargo would be used to build and till the land. Those human beings, who were treated like animals, had a secret weapon of survival. That weapon was the gift of artistic expression that began to bloom under the blood-stained soil of the cotton fields.

While American Art had its roots traced back to European colonization, original artistic expression was displayed by Native Americans. Native American artists used abstract forms to paint pictures of the earth and heavens.

Art created by African Americans had many different forms and definitions. Ancestral drums and other instruments were carved to create sounds that were unique to specific tribes and regions. Early African American art enveloped more than a visual form but created a rich sound that was so unique to the negro spirit. We used our voices to communicate an art that was all our own.

The negro spiritual was a musical form that originated from the songs of enslaved African Americans in the 1800’s. The Negro spirituals were like poetries of hope to our people. Those early Negro spirituals were the birth of our gospel music today.

From that blood-stained soil, Anthologies in Black grew. As America was experiencing its growth pains, so did African Americans in their quest to express their joy and pain in the world of arts. From slavery to segregation, the rise of black talent within the genre of arts in America.

Once the slave was taught to read, another shoot grew in the Black Anthology. Blacks displayed excellence in the written in spoken word. Beginning the Pre-revolutionary war, African American writers began to emerge and give voice to their cries for freedom and equality.  They began to write about the evils of slavery and the rights of African Americans as citizens of this country.

Poetry and other forms of literature were taking shape in America. African American and Native American cries for freedom were heard through the voices of writers, painters, poets, musicians, and filmmakers. Opportunities in education sparked the African American mind to grow and reach for heights that their ancestors only dreamed about.

The struggle was real, and racial barriers still existed in the arts (they still do today!), but the Black Anthology was alive and growing in America. White America began to take notice of the brilliance in the smooth sound of a jazz composition written by Dizzy Gillespie and the elegant movements of the Alvin Ailey Dancers.

It has been said that black music has shaped America’s culture. From rock n’ roll to jazz to disco, African Americans have created the sound that shaped many decades in the US. Genres such as hip-hop, rap, and R&B were created solely by African Americans and are enjoyed worldwide. Very few people knew that country music was a melting pot of black culture. Folk songs were created by black immigrants from the British Isles in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The banjo and the fiddle were created by blacks in the South in the 1690s. Folk songs sung with banjos and fiddles are still very much a part of country music.

In Wil Haygood’s book titled “Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World,” Haygood analyzed 100 years of black film in America. He traced the early beginnings of black filmmaking when the racist 1915 film “The Birth of a Nation” was released. The movie “Birth of a Nation” inspired protests and marches across the US because of its savage attack against black dignity and freedom.

 Black Anthology, to me, is the utter love and respect for the black experience in arts. It is the pride that I feel when I visit the National Underground Freedom Center in my hometown of Cincinnati. It is the paintings and music that have been passed down to me from my father whose love for the Black Anthology is alive and well in me.