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nations as well. This paper will examine the basis for the style, point out salient characteristics of the art and discuss some of the significant historical influences on the birth and development of this Afrocentric visual art, with particular emphasis on work created in the United States. 

Of all forms of human expression shackled in the yoke of chattel slavery in America, none has been so bound up and suffered as much retardation as visual art expression. For, while access to the arts of dance, drama, and music were permitted, even encouraged (in a restricted sense), image-making was fearfully and ruthlessly suppressed, and except for architecture and other function-related arts, forbidden to captive Africans. Thus, in music, drama and the dance the inimitable uniqueness of the African expressive personality has been preserved and the traditional forms have been built upon in the new land to the greater glory of the entire planet. But, the repression of traditional image-making practices orphaned the African-American slave to mainstream modes of expression. 

It was not until after World War I, when Marcus M. Garvey ignited race consciousness among African-Americans nationally, raising the cry for an Afrocentric viewpoint in every field and later, with the particular encouragement of intellectuals such as W.E.B. Dubois, [written - James Weldon Johnson] and [written - especially,] Alain L. Locke, that African-American artists began to forge conscious links to African aesthetics in their work. An indefatigable art promoter and knowledgeable aesthetician, Locke [strikethrough sensed] [written - opined that] the creation of a distinct style was necessary to sustain and develop the mushrooming "Roaring Twenties" interest in African-American art. [[strikethrough]] He even proposed certain characteristics of traditional African art which might form the basis for a distinct [africentric] African-American style. [[/strikethrough]]