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system which characterized American life early in the century, and has continued till this day because social and political factors still make Black people a special group within the national population.
The term "Black Art" falls in the same context as the Black Church, Blues, Black Literature, the ghetto, the Black mayor and the like. The awareness of the Black Artist of his plight in relationship to world art illustrates even further that the term "Black Art" is subject to critical definition. Afro-American Art is a morally instructive art form, arising from a strong nationalistic base and characterized by its commitment to use the past and its heroes to inspire heroic and revolutionary ideals, to use recent political and social events to teach recognition, control and extermination of the "enemy", to project the future which the nation can anticipate after the struggle is won. In much of his visual language the average Afro-American artist is basically a realist. Black Art is a social art and at present it much be communicative in order to be relevant to the Black community. Afro-American Art is much like any other art form in that it is the ultimate expression of a given culture and certain conditions within that culture. The true Black American can lay claim to one of this nations most diversified cultures, the same is true of Afro-American Art once this art is known to the public at large.