Black Arts Movement Vs Civil Rights Movement

The civil rights movement and the black arts movements harnessed this resentment in two different ways. The civil rights movement mainly protested with nonviolent means. Sit-ins, marches and general social disobedience(Luders). The black power movement took more of a physical approach to spreading its message. In his 1965 poem, Baraka exclaimed "we want poems that kill." This was not a symbolic gesture during this time period having a fire arm for self defense in urban areas become a necessity to demonstration.(site here) Slogans started to circulating such as "Arm yourself or harm yourself”, these sayings established a feeling of tension that promoted confrontation with the white power structure. Armed struggles was widely viewed as not only