Celebrating Black Creativity and Spirituality since 1970
About Black Arts Festival
Black Art has no boundaries or limitations. Its roots run deep through the histories of many countries and cultures, and its branches reach for the sky. The Dr. Walter J. Leonard Black Arts Festival was established in the late 1990s as a celebration of Black Art in its many forms. The annual festival, hosted by the Kuumba Singers of Harvard College, has featured song, dance, theatrical performance, film, and spoken word, among other mediums. And the depth and breadth of Black artistic expression has only grown.
While most people believe that art is significant in its power to offer escape, we believe that art is most significant in its power to confront and challenge. During the festival we will challenge notions of blackness, art, and freedom. And with eyes on the past, the present, and the future, we hope by the end of our celebration, each person knows freedom intimately.
“When asked to write about the Black Arts Festival’s history, I struggled to find a starting point. Does one start with the polyrhythmic music of West Africa or the primordial tragedy of the blues? Should one start with Paul Dunbar or Toni Morrison? I suppose the answer is that this festival began with a group of Black folk who knew that their own points of origin lay in the sustaining wisdom of Black art. We founded Harvard’s Black Arts Festival to remind our artists of their points of origin and to share those origins with our audience.
“The festival was first conceptualized as a simple fundraising event to honor the twenty-five year career of Mr. Robert Winfrey and to kickoff the endowment campaign of the Kuumba Singers of Harvard College. Mr. Winfrey was an institution in his own right, directing the Kuumba Singers for two and a half decades, and leading them from obscurity to prosperity. The event was conceptualized as a tribute to the rich history he created and left to us upon his retirement. However, as the event grew in size, it became clear that the Black Arts Festival (or “BAF” as it is lovingly called by those that work on it) would celebrate more than an organization’s history. It would celebrate the history and traditions of a life-force — the arts — that has sustained America’s most maligned people…”
Phillip Atiba Goff Founder
About Walter J. Leonard
While BAF was first conceived of as a means of celebrating the many contributions Mr. Winfrey made to Kuumba, it is named for Dr. Walter J. Leonard. Dr. Walter J. Leonard is a distinguished scholar and former president of Fisk University. He served as Special Assistant to the President of Harvard University and was Assistant Dean of both the Howard University School of Law and the Harvard University Law School. He was the founding chairman of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University. Dr. Leonard has published widely and has served on the boards of major foundations, educational institutions, and corporations. He attended Morehouse College, Atlanta University’s Graduate School of Business, the Howard University School of Law, and the Harvard University Business School. In recent years Dr. Leonard has been elected a Visiting Scholar of the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, and recently elected an Honorary Member of Wolfson College, University of Oxford. The Centre for Socio-Legal Studies has created two special Fellowships to be held at the Centre in honor of Dr. Walter J. Leonard. We remember him for his warm support of the Kuumba Singers in its challenging formative years and his continuous generosity.
Black Art has no boundaries or limitations. Its roots run deep through the histories of many countries and cultures, and its branches reach for the sky. The Dr. Walter J. Leonard Black Arts Festival was established in the late 1990s as a celebration of Black Art in its many forms. The annual festival, hosted by the Kuumba Singers of Harvard College, has featured song, dance, theatrical performance, film, and spoken word, among other mediums. And the depth and breadth of Black artistic expression has only grown.
