By Renée T. White
Adapted from opening remarks delivered at the opening of the symposium In Common: Romare Bearden and New Approaches to Art, Race & Economy organized by the Institute for Race, Power and Political Economy.
As an institution of higher education, it is imperative that we support a campus culture and a learning environment that is inclusive and open to all—one that supports diversity in all of its forms and fosters a spirit of equity. The New School was founded on these principles and our social justice roots and values are deeply ingrained in our mission and vision.
Looking back on the over 100 years of our history, there are some wonderful examples of how The New School has supported creative cultural leaders who were people of color. Within the university’s permanent collection, there is an incredible array of artists; of note are commissioned, site-specific art installations by artists that challenge the status quo and re-examine history, such as Glenn Ligon’s For Comrades and Lovers, Kara Walker’s Event Horizon, as well as the famed mural, Call to Revolution and Table of Universal Brotherhood by José Clemente Orozco. These works serve as daily reminders of the university’s commitment to promote learning through aesthetic experimentation and radical creative practice.
The New School has also functioned as a cultural center. In the spring of 1964, the university sponsored the American Race Crisis Lecture Series, which hosted speakers such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the iconic Auditorium at Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall. The 1965 Negro Writers Vision of America conference was also hosted on our campus, with a keynote by James Baldwin. The original, handwritten speech that he delivered is part of the archives at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. We have also hosted scholars in residence, such as bell hooks, who engaged in dialogues with many notable Black thought leaders including Cornel West, Laverne Cox, Janet Mock, and Melissa Harris-Perry.
The Black cultural tradition of the 20th century, as embodied in the works of Baldwin and reflected in more current scholars and artists, comes out of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, which was deeply influenced by Frantz Fanon. As Larry Neal explained, the Black Arts Movement “proposes a radical reordering of the western cultural aesthetic. It proposes unique symbolism, mythology, critique, and iconology. The Black Arts and the Black Power concept both relate broadly to the Afro-American desire for self-determination and nationhood.” Other luminaries such as Amiri Baraka, Sekou Sundiata, Michelle Materre, and Reggie Workman have all made significant contributions to The New School and to the broader realms of art and culture.[1] Their work has been instrumental in shaping our understanding of race, sexuality, and identity, aiding in the investigation of significant societal issues, and inspiring many generations of artists and activists.
Additionally, The New School is home to the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics—two examples of our Centers and Institutes dedicated to advancing progressive ideology. These institutions provide platforms for scholars and artists of color, fostering thought leadership and dialogue that push our world forward and, in collaboration with the Romare Bearden Foundation and The Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, have fostered such a dialogue through the initiative In Common: Romare Bearden and New Approaches to Art, Race & Economy.
Artist Romare Bearden worked as an activist well into the 1960s and 70s, just as the Black Arts Movement took flight. He was a founding member of the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Black Academy of Arts and Letters, and the first art director of the Harlem Cultural Council, a prominent African-American advocacy group. His vision and active commitment to creating spaces for Black creativity are also reflected in The New School. Our commitment to progressive Black leaders is evident in our faculty, both past and present.
But, to be really honest, it’s not enough to foreground these speakers, artists, and luminaries by talking about them or publishing them on our website to illustrate our values. Our values must be present in the lived experience of our community. We must always review, evaluate, and interrogate whether and how we act in accordance with these values. Furthermore, we have to continue to redefine what justice means, how it is manifest, and with whom we intend to collaborate to realize this vision.
It is equally important to acknowledge and embrace our full history as an institution in order to ensure that we at the New School do better, now and in the future. It was only in 2019 that The New School announced the historic appointment of Dwight A. McBride as the university’s first Black president. I am the first Black provost at The New School, having started my tenure in 2021.
Despite, and perhaps because of, our storied and important history, we also always have to remember where we fall short and how we can be better. Cataloging who we have hosted, sponsored, hired, and graduated is part of the story. But so is how our daily operations reflect or hinder progressive, justice-oriented values.
While the university is one place in which we endeavor to ask and act with integrity, we should take heed of the impact of the artists more widely in society, and the importance of artistic and creative practice for the health and vitality of our democracy and civic culture. If we embrace the notion that humanities and arts are core elements of the work of asking key social questions, that enable us to see the world more holistically, then perhaps it is not a leap to argue that the arts and humanities invite the examination of who we are as a people and how we are as a polity.
Given that, it is essential that artists of color are the architects of their own storytelling and creative practice. We must center those perspectives, and the importance of art, in what makes us human. We know that there is incredible power in the work and the voices of the multiple ways in which artists engage us and challenge us, particularly artists of color. We know that the arts and humanities, the liberal arts, creative practice, and particularly the voices of marginalized people, have been increasingly under siege. And, we know that the works of marginalized folks have been targeted at the national level, at the local level, and at the state level—in our libraries, in our schools, in our neighborhoods, and well beyond.
This onslaught has prompted a referendum on the cultivation and also preservation of the arts and humanities, of free access to information, and the opportunity to engage in knowledge production. Attempts to curtail or censor the telling of stories of underrepresented and marginalized people makes clear that places like The New School have a moral, social, and political obligation to be places of welcome for such storytelling through the visual and performing arts.
It was our great privilege to host Tracie D. Hall, past Executive Director of the American Library Association, as a scholar in residence at The New School in spring 2023. A strong and unequivocal advocate against book banning and other forms of censorship, Tracy’s refrain, “free people read freely,” was something that really took hold. Building on that we could reasonably claim that free people create freely and that artists from marginalized communities insist on their, and on our, freedom within their creative practice and their projects.
So, in closing, I want to return to the subject of the symposium: Romare Bearden and New Approaches to Art, Race and Economy, to highlight why all of this matters. Bearden was an essential thinker in the Black Arts Movement, and he undoubtedly explored both the fact of blackness and negritude as unquestionably relevant subjects for art in and of itself, not in response to, or counter to anti-blackness, but in claiming the space and the importance of the Black story.
Bearden contemplated the role of aesthetics in the demonstration of the experiences of Black Americans as a story of America, and of the placement of Black people in it. Such work tells a particular story of Black people and also contributes to a picture of the whole of humanity. In a 1975 op-ed that he wrote in the New York Times, Bearden opined that:
“…The demands of the world require much more than good intentions—they require insight and wisdom. For wisdom in the face of complexity is likely to produce the necessary humility that keeps mankind human. And all of this is to say that great productive changes never occur through the influence of one dominant force, whether it be art, science, or religion, but through a confluence of many forces, which in unison have the power to transcend the contributions of all individual elements. For the highest order of the human experience is in building a fit world where we can all live in peace.”
We hope and intend that The New School has been and remains one of those forces, pushing toward a human experience that embraces us all. Progress is a continuum, and there are always strides to be made. We still have a lot of work to do to nurture a community of care that is built on the principles of equity, inclusion and social justice. And this goes beyond just supporting people of color, people of different gender and sexual identities, religious beliefs, and so on. It is essential that we do this work authentically, that we do this work with a true intersectional framework, and that we analyze the dynamics of positionality, power, and agency. Such is the work of decolonizing our curriculum, and of imagining what true liberation entails.
[1] Amiri Baraka (1934-2014) was a renowned poet, playwright, and activist whose work challenged racial and social injustices. His influential plays, such as Dutchman and The Slave, and his collection of poetry, including Black Magic, have left a lasting impact on American literature and the fight for racial equality. Baraka’s role as a professor at The New School allowed him to inspire new generations with his revolutionary ideas and artistic vision.
Sekou Sundiata (1948-2007) was an acclaimed poet, performance artist, and educator whose work blended narrative and music to explore themes of identity and social justice. His celebrated one-man shows, like The Circle Unbroken Is a Hard Bop, used personal and political narratives to engage audiences in discussions about race, identity, and the African American experience. Sundiata’s innovative approach to performance and his role as a teacher at The New School profoundly influenced contemporary art and culture.
Michelle Materre (1954 – 2022) was a distinguished scholar, filmmaker, and educator known for her work in film and media that highlights underrepresented voices. She had a significant and expansive impact at the university over the course of two decades, and her film projects and academic work contributed significantly to conversations about diversity and inclusion in the arts. Creatively Speaking, a film series Materre founded more than 25 years ago, continues to be a leading forum highlighting independent film by and about women and people of color, offering film screenings, conversations, and other events.
Reggie Workman, one of our longest-serving faculty members in the School of Jazz, is an acclaimed bassist and educator with a storied career. His work with legendary jazz musicians such as John Coltrane and Art Blakey has solidified his reputation in the jazz world. Workman’s contributions to music education at The New School have helped shape the future of jazz and inspired countless students with his deep knowledge and passion for the genre.