What Did Dubois Mean When He Said Art Is Propaganda

10.
Writing

-	W. E. B. Du Bois, "Criteria of Negro Art," essay, The Crunch, Oct 1926
-	Alain Locke, "Art or Propaganda?" essay, Harlem, November 1928 (PDF)

Should African American writers commit themselves and their work to the social and political goals of blackness liberation, or should they pursue their own aesthetic ends? Should African American literature be propaganda or fine art? This debate has special resonance for African Americans, for in the antebellum era black writing was driven past abolitionist zeal, and in the years afterwards the Civil War it served what the writer Charles Chesnutt chosen "the high holy purpose" of advancing the recognition and equality of the race (see The Making of African American Identity, Vol. Two). With the appearance of the New Negro Motility critics asserted that blackness writing should be free to abandon its explicit social and political purposes in favor of more aesthetic goals. In the 1920s this contend was conducted mainly past W. E. B. Du Bois, who argued that "All art is propaganda," and Alain Locke, who argued that "propaganda perpetuates the position of group inferiority." (For information on Locke, see Theme II: MIGRATIONS.)

Du Bois delivered "Criteria for Negro Art" to the 1926 Briefing of the NAACP in Chicago. In it he argues non for narrow literature that bludgeons the reader with a social message but for fine art that works on behalf of racial advancement, deploying "Truth" to promote "universal understanding" and "Goodness" to engender "sympathy and man interest." In "Art or Propaganda?" Locke calls not for corrupt or "over-civilized" fine art simply for art free to serve its own ends, complimentary to cull either "group expression" or "individualistic expression." In the end both men sought the same goal: they wanted to gainsay perceptions of black inferiority amid both blacks and whites.

So who won the debate? The answer would depend on when you asked the question. Had yous raised it in the 1920s, the answer would exist Locke. The about influential critic of African American literature of the early twentieth century, he was able to publish his views widely and direct patronage and attention to writers who agreed with him. In the 1930s and early 1940s, as the nation struggled with economic depression and world war, many writers—black and white—embraced proletarian literature and social realism, bringing the Du Boisian position into prominence. One sees this trend manifested vividly in Richard Wright's novel Native Son, published in 1940. During the tardily 1940s and throughout the 1950s, the nation's increasingly bourgeois political climate and the integrationist goals of the civil rights movement re-established the clout of Locke'southward arroyo. To illustrate this change in direction, critics generally point to Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Human being, published in 1952. Equally the civil rights motion became more than assertive in the 1960s and as African American intellectuals insisted that black art must be part of a revolutionary struggle, Du Bois's stance over again came to the fore. Since the late 1970s, with the rise of critical theories that focus on language and structure, one can say that, in general, a rather Lockean view prevails. (12 pages.)

Discussion questions

1. Why would this argue on the office of fine art in the African American struggle for freedom and justice arise in the late 1920s?
2. How does Du Bois characterize the moment? How does Locke?
3. How does Du Bois at the opening of his speech communication engage his politically agile audience?
4. What role does the "Lady of the Lake" episode play in his spoken communication?
5. Du Bois offers 3 stories—the story of the white girl and the brown daughter, the story of the "colored lawyer" in the Southern town, and the story of the conquest of German E Africa—out of which blackness writers might create "romance." What do these stories take in common?
6. Du Bois describes three artists—the black sculptor in New York, the writer Richard Brown, and the black musician in Chicago. What point does he make with them?
7. According to Du Bois, what damage do stereotypes inflict upon readers and writers?
8. What does Du Bois suggest nearly African American identity when he asserts that "the ultimate judge" of African American fine art "has got to exist" African Americans themselves?
9. According to Du Bois, how does the judgment of white critics nullify the distinctively black feel of African American artists?
10. How, according to Locke, does propaganda perpetuate racial inferiority?
11. What values does Locke encounter in propaganda?
12. How does Du Bois recognize the social and political realities of racism? How does Locke?

Printing Du Bois: 10 (much white infinite) Locke:   2 TOTAL 12 pages

Supplemental Sites West. East. B. Du Bois: The Activist Life, online exhibition, Academy of Massachusetts-Amherst Library Westward. Due east. B. Du Bois, overview, in The Ascension and Autumn of Jim Crow (WNET/PBS) Alain Locke, overview and bibliography, from Howard University Libraries Alain Locke, overview and bibliography, in The Black Renaissance in Washington (Commune of Columbia Public Library)

*PDF file - You will need software on your computer that allows you to read and impress Portable Document Format (PDF) files, such equally Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do non have this software, y'all may download information technology FREE from Adobe'south Web site.

Images:
-Westward. E. B. Du Bois, photograph, between 1910 and 1930. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Segmentation, #LC-USZ62-123822.
-Alain Locke, photograph, north.d. Copyright holder unknown. Digital image from Howard University Libraries; permission pending.

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Source: http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/protest/text10/text10read.htm

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