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• 1 2019-10-23T18:23:43-04:00 "The New Ark" 28 image_header 2020-03-17T21:11:14-04:00

  The “New Ark” is a 1968 short film directed by LeRoi Jones and produced by James Hinton in Newark, New Jersey. The film chronicles the cultural development within the black community of Newark during the rise of the Black Power movement and the push to mobilize black voters in the city’s 1968 mayoral elections.

  While the film begins as an artistic compilation of scenes of Newark streets, communities and buildings, amplified by a voice reciting a Muslim prayer, the political agenda of the New-Ark becomes quite apparent as the film progresses. The opening of the film transitions to the narration by LeRoi Jones (Amira Baraka) where he declares, “a nation is organization.” This opening proclamation foreshadowed the display of the diverse methodology employed by organizations like the Committee for Unified Newark, United Brothers, and Jones’s Spirit House to actively develop a black consciousness and pursue the development of an unwavering black identity in a “white death context”. As the film pans to multiple scenes of children's programs and kemp self-defense classes; one sees a clear form of cultural indoctrination of black youth in order to foster a sensitivity for black consciousness and a desire to form a union where black people can “rule themselves”. In these black school programs, children recited black freedom pledges such as,

  “I am black. I am strong. I am determined. I am righteous. I have come to school. To bear witness to the blackness. To better understand my blackness. My aim is to build a black nation.” 

  Yet, this cultural development was not solely directed towards children. Black women formed the “Sisters for Black Culture” who proclaimed the role of the black women to be that of “inspiring black men, who are the salvation of the black nation” (16:52). This polarizing statement seemed to affirm the beliefs of Eldridge Cleaver in Soul on Ice (1968)in the sentiment that black women are an accessory for the black man in his fight for liberation. While affirming Cleaver’s sentiment, it strictly goes against the beliefs of feminist writers, such as bell hooks and Michele Wallace, who believe the role of a black women should be to improve her own status in society, not solely “inspire” the black man in his struggle: for black liberation cannot be achieved without gender-based oppression being addressed.

  Moreover, this film is an emblematic example of the third stage in search for cultural nationalism that Franz Fanon praises in The Wretched of the Earth (1961).In the chapter on national culture, Fanon critiques the reactionary “Negro-ism” movement of attempting to counter the oppressive forces of Western culture by racializing culture and orienting all Negro art and literature to African traditions. Fanon claimed these tactics used by the “native intellectual” were dismissing the heterogeneity of black people in the same way European colonizers did. However, Fanon declared that when the community embraces its own culture, it will fuel a shift to a fight for national liberation instead of reasserting the tenants of colonialism: a desire reflected in the black community of Newark.

  Ultimately, the film’s revolutionary nature highlights that the political necessity of the Black Power movement lies in the union and development of cultural and social nationalism within the black community. Through the exploration of theater, education, self-defense, the investment in communal gatherings and spread of political ideology, this film chronicles the active nurturing of this cultural nationalism.