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Art Class Appreciates Negro Art and Culture

The Advanced Art class had the opportunity of seeing the wonderful testimonial to the vitality of American culture through Charles White's new portfolio on the Negro.

After compiling the compositions that we wrote on them, we found that practically every paper stated something about the realism and expression that was captured in his work, the different interpretations portrayed in each figure—the movement of the body, the signs on the face that seemed to give a feeling of sadness, of pity, and of bewilderment; and yet they seemed to say that there was hope. They also seemed to express a deep religion that, if the heart is kept high and faith is held, there will be a way. The forms of the hands also told a story.

We were honored to have this group of pictures devoted to the Negro and his cultural ways and traditions. Harry Belafonte said, "In his ...... bold affirmative strokes (is) a positive estimate of humanity," because the arts are one of the most efficient means of showing the idiom of the Negro so that it is understood clearly with bold admission to the truths without flinching or regret, to understand that there was beauty and youth then as well as now; and to know that we are living with an urge to live, to accomplish a long reached-for goal.

White was educated here in Chicago, and his pictures are in the library. See, understand, and enjoy them.

—Cinema McCane, 502

Transcription Notes:
[I only transcribed the encircled article. Correct?]