Behold the Land

“An in-depth account of the cultural and political life of Black artists and activists in the South from the 1960s to the '80s . . . Scholars of African American literature and history will relish the granular look this influential yet often overlooked artistic movement.”—Publishers Weekly

“In Behold the Land, Smethurst demonstrates that decades of organizing and institution building, from the Garveyite years and the Popular Front to the civil rights movement, helped preserve a Black radicalism in the South that eventually became central to the Black Arts Movement in the region. . . . Smethurst joins scholars like GerShun Avilez and Carter Mathes in revising the canonical understanding of the Black Arts Movement.”—The Nation

“Striking . . . meticulous research . . . Smethurst [shows] how the Black Arts became integrated into the institutional structures of Southern cities and evolved into organizations and events that, if less overtly radical than their earlier iterations, had more staying power.”—Society for US Intellectual History

“This well-crafted, well-researched book provides an insightful, thoughtful, and rich history of the Black Arts movement.”—North Carolina Historical Review

“Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Behold the Land is bound to become the definitive study of the Black Arts movement in the South” — Margo Natalie Crawford, author of Black Post-Blackness: The Black Arts Movement and Twenty-First-Century Aesthetics

“This book is vital and visionary. James Smethurst’s exemplary study accomplishes the task of presenting the extensive work of a diverse group of African American artists across the South.” — Howard Rambsy II, author of The Black Arts Enterprise and the Production of African American Poetry