Baltimore’s Black Arts Then & Now brings to life the Chicory Revitalization Project, a public humanities initiative that revives Baltimore’s historic Chicory magazine. From 1966 to 1983, Chicory served as a powerful voice for working-class Black communities, capturing their thoughts, struggles, and dreams through unedited poetry and street chatter. Dubbed “the most authentic microphone of black folks talking ever devised” by the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper, Chicory emerged from the liberalism of the War on Poverty and the militance of the Black Arts Movement.
Since 2017, a group of former Chicory editors, scholars, librarians, poets, teachers, and young writers have collaborated to use Chicory as a catalyst for intergenerational dialogue on social justice, race, and place. Baltimore’s Black Arts Then & Now documents this joint effort, offering valuable insights for public historians, educators, and humanists.
“A model for a new kind of scholarship. . . . This is the rare volume that is equally as useful for specialists as it is for broader audiences.”—Roopika Risam, coeditor, Anti-Racist Community Engagement: Principles and Practices
“This book is desperately needed. Mary Rizzo and her colleagues provide a powerful counter to a trend within university hiring practices. They have turned over those shiny stones, allowing us to look closely at the life underneath them. This book provides the best and most transparent view of public history processes and outcomes that I have ever seen. Here, we see success and failure, conflict and resolution, negotiation and decision-making all as ongoing within an active project.”—Denise D. Meringolo, editor, Radical Roots: Public History and a Tradition of Social Justice Activism
“Dr. Mary Rizzo and the Chicory Revitalization Project invite readers into an indelible example of Black community and collective artmaking, centered on the journal Chicory, that also represents a vital intervention in the intellectual and cultural life of Baltimore and the surrounding region. As this brilliant gathering shows, Chicory and the Chicory Revitalization Project represent artmaking as creation, self-realization, activism, education, transformation, and praxis, and provide an invaluable model for artists seeking to speak to the pressing concerns of today and every day.”—John Keene, author, Punks: New & Selected Poems
FOREWORD | ANNE VALK | TERESA MANGUM
INTRODUCTION | MARY RIZZO
Poetic Echoes, Living Futures
PART ONE
BROADSIDE | “Be More” by E. A. J.-Hasan Mobutu Ngozi and “Be More Bmore” by Victor Rodgers
CHAPTER 1 | MARY RIZZO
Poetry for People’s Sake: The Black Arts Movement, Emotional History, and Intergenerational Dialogue
CHAPTER 2 | MELVIN E. BROWN
Chicory: A Magazine for and from the People
PART TWO
BROADSIDE | “Poets” by Vincent A. Johnson and “All That We Can” by Rejjia Camphor
CHAPTER 3 | MARY RIZZO
Ethics and Affordances: Digitization Is the Starting Point, Not the Goal
CHAPTER 4 | SYDNEY JOHNSON
Doin’ It for the Gram: How Baltimore’s Chicory Revitalization Project Uses Instagram to Engage the Public
CHAPTER 5 | MARY RIZZO
A Shifting Landscape: Update to “Doin’ It for the Gram”
CHAPTER 6 | MARY RIZZO
In the Spirit Of: Creating Community Through Public Humanities
CHAPTER 7 |Why We Got Involved
Writers in Baltimore Schools by Patrice Hutton
Bard High School Early College Baltimore by Patrick Oray
DewMore Baltimore by Victor Rodgers
PART THREE
BROADSIDE | “black city summer” by handy and “Summer 2020” by A’niya Taylor
CHAPTER 8 | MARY RIZZO
Soul of the Butterfly: Co-Creation Through Structured Flexibility
CHAPTER 9
Co-Creation from Our Perspective
Rutgers University–Newark Students: Michael Amankwaah, Hayat Abdelal, Annoymous, Blessing Braimah
Kimberly Day
Keyma Flight
Taye Caldwell
Rejjia Camphor
CHAPTER 10 | MARY RIZZO
Removing a Team Member for Doing Harm
CHAPTER 11
Reflecting on Harm and Healing
Keyma Flight
Taye Caldwell
Markele Cullins
CHAPTER 12 | ERIN R. SANTANA
Queer Black People Just Existing: Revising Contentious Images and Captions
CHAPTER 13 | MARKELE CULLINS | MARY RIZZO
Making Revolution Irresistible: A Graphic Designer’s Perspective on Public History
CHAPTER 14 | VICTOR RODGERS
The Poet-Tree: Connecting Past and Present Through Interactive Poetry
CHAPTER 15 | MARY RIZZO
Circles of Impact: Holistically Evaluating Public Humanities Projects
PART FOUR
BROADSIDE | “Yesterday I Saw Freedom” by Margaret Locklear and “Free” by Taye Caldwell
CHAPTER 16 | REJJIA CAMPHOR
The Measure of Our Lives: Archiving and Teaching Language, Memory, and Chicory to Future Generations
CHAPTER 17 | PATRICK ORAY
Chicory: Organic Matter for a Civic and Revolutionary Education
CHAPTER 18 | MARY RIZZO
Be Here: Reflections on a Multimodal Digital Public History Assignment
CHAPTER 19 | MARY RIZZO
Remix and Response: Blackout Poetry
CHAPTER 20 | VICTOR RODGERS | DEVLON WADDELL | KEVIN JOHNSON JR.
The Chicory Project: Reviving Baltimore’s Voice Through Art, Activism, and Ancestral Legacy
About the Collaborators
Acknowledgments
Resources and Support
Notes
Select Bibliography
