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Document Type
Podcast
Publication Year
2025
Description
The civil rights era was not only a period of political revolution but of profound cultural revolution. Led by Black artists radicalized by the political and social realities of the time, the cultural revolution both captured the Black experience of ’60s and ’70s America and imagined a future free from the specters of segregation, discrimination and racial violence. Black artists continued to assert their revolutionary visions despite facing censorship and threats of violence for the political nature of their work.
In this episode, we use critical race theory to situate three pieces of art in the civil rights era: Sam Cooke’s 1963 song, A Change is Gonna Come; Faith Ringgold’s 1971 painting, For the Women’s House; and, William Eric Water’s 2014 poem, “Even a Black Poet is Considered Armed and Extremely Dangerous”. How were these pieces and the artists that created them influenced by the civil rights era? What kinds of resistance did they meet and why?
Disciplines
Civil Rights and Discrimination | Law and Race | Race and Ethnicity
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Center/Program
Studio for Law and Culture
Recommended Citation
Thomas, Kendall and Waters, William Eric, "CRT2 S4 Ep4: Echoes of Freedom: Artivism, Censorship and the Civil Rights Movement" (2025). CRT2 Season 4. 4.
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/crt2_4/4
Episode Details
Length: 28:45
Featuring:
Kendall Thomas is Nash Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Law and Culture at Columbia Law School.
William Eric Waters is an Author/Consultant/Coach E-Z Waters Consulting.