Desegregating Black Art Genealogies: An Invitation

In 1926, W.E.B. Du Bois published “Criteria of Negro Art,” in The Crisis, in which he claimed, “All Art is propaganda and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists. I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy. I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda. But I do care when propaganda is confined to one side while the other is stripped and silent.”¹ Du Bois’s investment in art