African-American Rights Movements: Fight The Power

Artists such as KRS-One, Public Enemy and Chuck D. position themselves as heirs to the legacy of the Panthers and Malcolm X by creatively updating the “media-conscious iconography of sixties black radicalism for a 1990s constituency”, says Hannah Jeffery.

The emergence of hip-hop as a mainstream pop music in the 1990s represented a shift in the traditional logic of crossover. Rather than hip-hop needing to be softened, the mainstream audience instead crossed over to what was deemed authentic, un-distilled, unmediated forms of contemporary black urban music.

With their third album, Fear of a Black Planet, Public Enemy proclaims the death of European predominance. Pop goes Afrocentric for the ’90s.

"Thriller" conquered racial divides and evolving platforms at MTV, radio.

How Living Colour made one of the most prescient albums of the 20th century, and conquered rock ’n’ roll in the process.

Short post about the ways in which The Fresh Prince portrayed the Banks family and their relationship to larger trends about Black politics and Black intellectual thought in the early 1990s.

Of all its legacies, the one most noted when discussing The Cosby Show is its depictions of race and class. Nothing like it had been seen before on television, and nothing has had its level of impact since.

"A Different World" debuted on NBC 30 years ago on Sept. 24, 1987 and not only taught the cast lessons, it took the nation to the yard and schooled them on the culture, care and traditions of black colleges and showcased the experiences of black youth in an unprecedented way for six years.

While sometimes referred to as a "Black SNL," this mostly black sketch show was more than just counterprogramming to white comedy shows. "In Living Color" often tackled race and social issues through humor — something "SNL" occasionally tries, while rarely having enough people of color on staff to succeed.

During his show's initial five-year run, nationally syndicated from 1989 to 1994, Arsenio Hall gave a voice to the black community that could not be found elsewhere on late-night TV.

The late 80s and 90s heralded a breakthrough led by Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood. At first, Hollywood embraced this wave of talent, then it ignored it. Now, in the wake of #OscarsSoWhite, black film is rising again

When John Singleton first approached Ice Cube to be in a movie, the rapper didn’t take him seriously. But soon the novice actor, along with Cuba Gooding Jr., Laurence Fishburne, and Angela Bassett, realized Singleton’s script about South-Central Los Angeles was unlike anything that had come before it. A quarter century later, the cast and crew talk about making the revolutionary film.

The explosion of black cinema in the 90s, with its often rudimentary cinematography and thin story lines, paved the way for recent artistic triumphs including “Hidden Figures,” “Fences” and “Moonlight,” all recently garnering multiple Oscar nominations.

From 1988 - Eddie Murphy, and his sidekick Arsenio Hall, are posed to make in big in their latest film Coming to America.

After its May 1989 premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, Lee’s film quickly became a polarizing force, generating a firestorm of controversy straight into its June 30, 1989, theatrical opening. How exactly did film critics at the time react to Do the Right Thing?

Jordan was the right player at the right time, soaring onto TV exactly as the NBA’s image was ready to be remade and sold across the globe. At the same time, he helped to forge a new African-American image.

By the 1980s, America finally publicly embraced the black athlete, looking past skin color to see athleticism and skill, rewarding stars with multimillion-dollar athletic contracts, movie deals, lucrative shoe endorsements and mansions in all-white enclaves.