Identifying with the African Past
During the 1960s and 1970s, many African Americans began to proudly claim the history and culture of Africa, including Egypt, as their rightful heritage, thus linking themselves to some of the greatest civilizations of the past. Many artists, such as Charles McGee, Henri King, Oliver LaGrone, Jon Lockard, Aaron Ibn Pori Pitts, as well as Shirley Woodson, often referred to Africa in their works.
Abu Symbols, 1973
Allie McGhee
oil on canvas
DMC, Detroit Receiving Hospital
According to Allie McGhee, “In the 1970s [Black] people were trying to lift themselves up from the idea that they came from nothing to recognize that they were kings and queens, mathematicians, recognize they were something more than slaves.” Abu Symbols makes this point. It is based on the four colossal statues of Pharoah Ramesses II, who ruled from 1297 to 1213 B.C.E., which form the entrance of a temple formerly at Abu Simbel, Egypt. McGhee explicitly makes the connection between people of the African diaspora—including African Americans—and the Pharaohs by giving the statue on the right pronounced lips and a pure black face.
Haitian Voodoo Priestess, 1980-1982
Harold Neal
Original charcoal drawing, reproduced in Homespun Images: An Anthology of Black Memphis Writers and Artists, 1989
Michigan State University Libraries, Flint
Harold Neal was unable to travel to Africa. Instead, in the early 1980s, he visited Haiti where the cultures of Africa, especially the folk religion of Vodou, remained more intact than in the U.S. Neal and his son Chris visited a “real voodoo place,” where a woman was conducting a ritual involving chickens and a pot on a fire. Here Neal presents a similar scenario: a woman, possibly with a crown or other ritual regalia on her head, stands by a fire. Her hands seem to be clasped in prayer, but she also holds the beak of a bird between them. Chris concluded that “voodoo was a subtle experience of spirituality and connectedness, energy and power” and that his father was very spiritual, “a philosophical dude.”
Conclusion
The 1980 election of Ronald Reagan marks the end of a revolutionary era in American life. Indeed, by the mid-1970s the fervor of the Black Nationalist, Black Power, and Black Arts Movement had begun to cool. There were many reasons for this, but in Detroit the 1973 election of Coleman Young, a former labor leader, a socialist, and a Civil Rights activist, gave new hope to Detroit’s Black community.
In the vernacular of the day, Harold Neal and the other artists represented in this exhibition “kept the faith, baby” with their community. Through their work of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, they protested the oppression of Black Americans and celebrated African American heritage, life, and culture.