Previous

The Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s ushered in a period known as the Black Arts Movement from 1965–1975, which saw Black musicians, writers, and artists rise in popularity. Soon after the assassination of Malcolm X, poet Amiri Baraka opened the Black Arts Repertory Theater in Harlem, where mentors taught art, writing, and music classes in Black neighborhoods, and many consider the opening of the center as the official start of the Black Arts Movement. Black women writers experienced a surge of their own in the 1970s during a period known as the Black Women's Literary Renaissance. Two years before publishing Gorilla, My Love and writing as Toni Cade at the time, Bambara edited The Black Woman: An Anthology, a groundbreaking collection of reflections from Black female essayists, poets, and authors. Until this point, Black women had been largely left out of national conversations about civil rights, which were dominated by Black men, and feminism, which were dominated by white women. In the 1970s, writers like Bambara, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou wrote about their personal experiences and observations about the intersection of civil rights and feminism. One way these women differed from the male writers who came before them was in placing a greater emphasis on how racism affected everyday life among families and children in Black communities. Just two of many other notable books by Black female writers published at this time were Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in 1969 and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison in 1970.

Previous section About Toni Cade Bambara

Take a Study Break