Readying the Revolution

Starting in 1966, African American activist Stokely Carmichael and other political leaders adopted the phrase "Black Power!" The slogan captured a militant, revolutionary spirit that was already emerging in the work of playwrights, poets, musicians, and visual artists throughout the Black Arts movement of the mid-1960s. But the story of those theater artists and performers whose work helped bring about the Black Arts revolution has not fully been told. Readying the Revolution: African American Theater and Performance from Post-World War II to the Black Arts Movement explores the dynamic era of Black culture between the end of World War II and the start of the Black Arts Movement (1946-1964) by illuminating how artists and innovators such as Jackie Robinson, Lorraine Hansberry, Ossie Davis, Nina Simone, and others helped radicalize Black culture and Black political thought. In doing so, these artists defied white cultural hegemony in the United States, and built the foundation for the revolutionary movement in Black theater that followed in the mid 1960s.

Through archival research, close textual reading, and an analysis of visual and aural performance artifacts, author Jonathan Shandell demonstrates how these artists negotiated a space on the public stage of the United States for cultivating radical Black aesthetic exploration and a spirit of courageous antiracist resistance. Readying the Revolution provides new insights into the activism and accomplishments of African American artists whose work helped lay the groundwork for a Black Nationalist cultural revolution, but whose influence has yet to receive its due recognition.