Teaching Black History, Thought, and Culture Through Art (2024)

Exploring the vast and brilliant contributions of African American artists is especially significant in February, when educators are looking for creative ways to recognize Black History Month, but it’s also work that can happen anytime during the school year.

As a teacher, I like to use art as a way to celebrate Black artists and start conversations that help situate their experiences in the larger framework of American and world history. It’s a productive way to help students grapple with complex questions and topics and to inspire them to make art that tells their own unique stories.

Here are eight artists—with some details about their lives and creative work—to help get these discussions started in your classroom. I’ve included project suggestions, but you might think of these as starting points: Students could also do their own research to discover other Black artists; learn about their lives, motivation, style, and message; and then make art inspired by what they learn.

Kara Walker
Born 1969
Black and white cut-paper silhouettes were affordable, thrifty portraits before the advent of photography. They’re usually likenesses of people—traced from the subject’s profile cast in light and then snipped out with scissors—resulting in a high-contrast black-paper image against a light background. In the hands of contemporary artist Kara Walker, cut-paper silhouettes become an ethereal story revealing what you might find in the shadows of typically quaint, domestic images.

The power of her work is in the shock of finding strange and sometimes violent imagery where you would expect formality and decorum. She doesn’t shy away from painful imagery and explores the brutality of antebellum slavery and issues of race and gender.

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WENN Rights Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

Kara Walker, temporary subway installation, the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.

Classroom project: One of the best things about cut-paper silhouettes is the strong impact that comes from inexpensive, accessible materials, making it a deceptively simple medium for investigating complex and even difficult topics. In the classroom, kids can explore cutting out profiles of each other, or use stencils or other objects that strike their interest. For a more involved project, ask students to identify themes that come up in the texts you’re reading together in class—good and evil, honesty and trust, courage and fear—and then brainstorm how to illustrate these themes in a classroom mural, creating a Walker-inspired contrast of complex storytelling and unexpected materials.

Gordon Parks
1912–2006
Gordon Parks created enough work for 10 artists. Born into poverty, segregation, and social upheaval, he was a self-taught filmmaker, writer, and composer but became widely known for his photography. As a photographer for the Farm Security Administration and later for the Office of War Information, he documented social conditions, elevating the work to an art form through beautiful compositions, iconography, and symbolism. Parks saw his camera as a weapon against the unfair conditions afflicting his African American subjects affected by poverty, and he believed that by highlighting and preserving their beauty and dignity, he could invite awareness and forge a connection in the viewer.

Everett Collection Inc / Alamy Stock Photo (Parks); Courtesy of Tanya Brown Merriman (student)

“Harlem,” 1940, by Gordon Parks (left); a student photo inspired by Parks’s work.

Classroom project: Ask your middle or high school students to use their phone cameras to capture a striking image without the benefit of fancy lighting, posing, and multiple retakes or filters. Challenge them to capture action, emotion, or daily lived experience, finding and conveying, as Parks did, the beauty that others might not see.

Faith Ringgold
Born 1930
Faith Ringgold’s award-winning book Tar Beach has lined early-grade bookshelves since it was first published in 1990. The bulk of Ringgold’s work, however, is more confrontational and politically charged. Born in Harlem, she began making art in the early 1960s, unflinchingly documenting and responding to the world through her lens as a Black woman, taking on issues of racism, sexual violence, American identity, family, freedom, and hope. She painted White people at a time when most Black artists did not, flipping the gaze and pushing her art to do the heavy lifting of exploring who is in the center of American history and why. She used quilts, a domestic craft, to tell stories of labor exploitation, systemic economic injustice, and personal agency.

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Charlie J Ercilla / Alamy Stock Photo (Ringgold); Courtesy of Tanya Brown Merriman (student)

“Subway Graffiti #2,” 1987, by Faith Ringgold (left); student quilt inspired by the artist.

Classroom project: Story quilts are accessible to all ages, but they also can tell complex, unexpected stories, depending on the grade level of your students. For a Ringgold-inspired quilt, use materials like fabric strips or colored paper. You might also explore the rich history of African American quilting, including the quilts of the Underground Railroad that incorporated symbolic language to help Black people escaping slavery navigate their journey.

Jean-Michel Basquiat
1960–1988
Jean-Michel Basquiat was extremely prolific, but he died at age 27, leaving a distinctively modern body of work that helps students connect with his world. The very recognizable crown symbol and his tag SAMO—he started out as a high school student spray-painting graffiti on buildings in Lower Manhattan—are recurring motifs throughout his work and became the building blocks of his visual language. Sampling from advertising, educational texts, and historical resources, Basquiat’s work contended with racism, poverty, and access, as well as identity, sexuality, and the addiction that would ultimately take his life in 1988.

Classroom project: Using similar resources—literature, advertising, newspapers, magazines, and other materials students feel inspired by—ask students to tell their own stories in whatever format they’re drawn to. They can even create their own personal stamp or coat of arms.

Alma Thomas
1891–1978
The light, rhythm, and immediacy in Alma Thomas’s work are distinctively her own. She had a remarkably intuitive way of using color to elicit emotion and psychological response, and her large, bright canvases pulse with life.

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Smithsonian American Art Museum/Gift of the artist (Thomas); Courtesy of Tanya Brown Merriman (student)

“The Eclipse,” 1970, acrylic on canvas, by Alma Thomas (left); student cut-paper collage inspired by Thomas’s work.

Thomas, who began painting in the 1960s at age 68, didn’t directly tackle issues of racism and identity the way her counterparts did. Her radicalism lies in the very fact of her existence: She inhabited a space ordinarily occupied exclusively by White men. After just a decade of work, she became the first Black woman to earn a solo show at a major New York City museum—shortly after Black artists staged boycotts of these same museums because they excluded Black artists. Thomas’s work leaves us with questions such as: Where and when can the art of Black women be seen? Are Black artists obligated to address issues of racism in their art?

Classroom project: Students of all ages can emulate Thomas’s kinetic, mosaic-like style by creating paintings or cut-paper collages with intentional color choices that tell stories about the beauty in their lives.

Jacob Lawrence
1917–2000
Jacob Lawrence was a historian and may be one of the most recognizable artists from this list. He documented the African American experience, creating series devoted to Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, and explored migration, life in Harlem, and the civil rights movement. His paintings also depict everyday American life in church, weddings, schools, and shared domestic moments.

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Smithsonian American Art Museum/Gift of S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc.

“The Library,” 1960, by Jacob Lawrence, tempera on fiberboard.

His work is characterized by a bold, primary color palette; strong shapes; and simplified, outlined faces that universalize his characters, making it possible for all of us to see ourselves in his recording of history.

Classroom project: In history class, with a canvas of any kind and a way to make color, students can identify key points in a historical narrative and illustrate it as they see fit. Lawrence spoke of the freedom he experienced when painting and the power he felt in being able to make choices about shape, color, story. This idea of power and agency over our own art and story is something to encourage all students to connect with as they create.

Augusta Savage
1892–1962
Sculptor Augusta Savage was a trailblazing superstar. She moved to Harlem in 1921 to study at Cooper Union art school, and when she was denied a scholarship to study at an art school in Paris, she galvanized support from the press and artistic community until the school relented and allowed her to attend. When she returned to New York, she opened her own gallery, giving others the opportunity she might have been denied. Savage was classically trained and created in classical traditions. Her work was exaggerated and idealized, and sometimes it betrayed the barriers she faced to make her art.

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Science History Images / Alamy Stock Photo

Augusta Savage with her sculpture “Realization,” c. 1938.

Classroom project: It’s difficult to find another artist who so aptly shows us how to find beauty and possibility in pain and struggle. When Savage didn’t have access to bronze for her sculptures, for example, she used plaster and covered it with shoe polish. Commissioned to create a statue about slavery, she chose to show the power found in faith and exaltation. Classroom discussions about Savage’s work can examine what it means to find equanimity—calm and beauty in adversity—and a related art project can explore this theme using clay or by making 3D art.

Archibald J. Motley Jr.
1891-1981
The work of painter Archibald Motley,known as a Jazz Age modernist, documented a specific time and place in history and revealed a complex view of the African American experience. Born in New Orleans and trained as an artist in Chicago, Motley was an important contributor to the Harlem Renaissance. Using vibrant color and exaggerated, lively forms, some of his canvases are populated, noisy, and bustling; others are isolated and deeply self-reflective.

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Peter Barritt / Alamy Stock Photo

“Nightlife,” 1943, by Archibald J. Motley Jr.

He painted the world that he saw and lived: newly elite Blacks on the South Side of Chicago and impoverished migrants who had recently arrived in the city. He wanted to share his world of nuanced and progressive blackness, and he wanted to bring his world of art and culture to his Black community. His belief that art was a great equalizer is still present and relevant in his work today.

Classroom project: Motley’s self-portraits were highly composed and formal, often elegant, aspirational, and embedded with the symbols of his cultural and personal identity. This can be replicated in a classroom with paints, photography, even music or other media. Ask students to consider how they’d like to present their best selves and communicate their ambitions and values.

Teaching Black History, Thought, and Culture Through Art (2024)

FAQs

Why is art important to Black history? ›

African Americans have truly enriched the nation's cultural tapestry, fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation of diversity. Their artistic contributions not only reflect the richness of their heritage but have also challenged societal norms, promoting dialogue and fostering unity across communities.

How does art reflect history and culture? ›

The close relationship between history and art is a reflection of the cultural, social, political, and economic values of a particular period. Art has a unique ability to serve as a historical document, capturing and preserving the experiences and perspectives of individuals, communities, and society as a whole.

How can art teach us about history? ›

We also can compare artwork, which provides different perspectives, and gives us a well-rounded way of looking at events, situations, and people. By analyzing artworks from the past and looking at their details, we can rewind time and experience what a time period different from our own was like.

What is the best way to learn about Black history? ›

The Many Ways to Learn Black History
  • Classes, Teachings and Lesson Plans:
  • Books & Collections:
  • Articles and Resources:
  • Podcasts:
  • Videos:
  • Roots and Records Searching Resources.
  • Historical Documents & Museum.
Jan 14, 2022

Why is art important in African culture? ›

African paintings are not just a form of decoration but also a means of communication that tells the stories of African societies, their customs, beliefs, and practices. They serve as a visual representation of the cultural history of African societies and are an important source of income for many African artists.

What does black symbolize in art? ›

It can be linked with death, mourning, evil magic, and darkness, but it can also symbolize elegance, wealth, restraint, and power. As the first pigment used by artists in prehistory and the first ink used by book printers, black played an important role in the development of art and literature.

How does art promote history and culture? ›

Art preserves what fact-based historical records cannot: how it felt to exist in a particular place at a particular time. Art in this sense is communication; it allows people from different cultures and different times to communicate with each other via images, sounds and stories.

How are art and history connected? ›

Art is an important and perhaps unexpected tool in teaching history. Photos, drawings, and paintings can communicate an abundance of information about historical events. Students can analyze pieces of art to assist them in digging deeper into investigating an artist's perspective and decision-making.

What is the connection between art and culture? ›

Both Art & Culture are two wonderful ways of preserving or strengthening a strong community's sense of place, forging a personal identity, and showing your creativity. Art & Culture boast multiple opportunities for learning, entertainment, leisure, personal growth, and improving communication with others.

Why is art so important in history? ›

Art both reflects and helps to create a culture's vision of itself. Studying the art of the past teaches us how people have seen themselves and their world, and how they want to show this to others.

Why is art important in culture? ›

Art can help us understand our history, our culture, our lives, and the experience of others in a manner that cannot be achieved through other means. It can also be a source of inspiration, reflection, and joy.

What makes art important to history? ›

Art is important to history because it provides us insight into events, beliefs, and values at specific moments in time. Artists often depict historical events soon after they happened, helping future generations to visualize and to understand what went on.

What are 5 important Black history events? ›

African American HistoryEvents
  • The Charleston Cigar Factory Strike (1945-1946) ...
  • Nashville Operation Open City Movement (1961-1964) ...
  • UCLA Shootout between the Panthers and US (1969) ...
  • The Chicago Sit-In (1943) ...
  • Royal Ice Cream Sit-In (1957) ...
  • The First Black Power Conference (1967) ...
  • The Read Drug Store Sit-Ins (1955)

What are three facts about Black history? ›

William Tucker, son of indentured servants from Great Britain, was the first recorded African child to be born in the colonies in 1624. Vermont was the first colony to ban slavery in 1777. In the 1770s, a Quaker named Anthony Benezet created the first school for African American children.

Why does Black history need to be taught? ›

Finally, African American history is important because it encourages better citizenship. It emphasizes the ties that bind together individuals, communities, and generations. It illuminates the struggles to redefine and expand constitutional and human rights, both for Black and non-Black people.

Why do you think that art is important to history? ›

Art history provides a means by which we can understand our human past and its relationship to our present, because the act of making art is one of humanity's most ubiquitous activities. As an art historian you will learn about this rich and fundamental strand of human culture.

What is the importance of art in history? ›

The Role of Art in History

Art has been used throughout history to tell stories, to help people worship their God, and to increase personal enjoyment. Many are familiar with cave paintings of centuries ago. These paintings help sociologists understand how ancient peoples understood the world.

Why is art important to society in history? ›

Importance of Art in the History

Art creates a culture's vision of itself. The art of the past teaches us how people have lived. History gives us a way to understand our past and how it relates to today.

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