Art for Equality

Art for Equality is a well-conceived and well-executed study that will add significantly to the historiography of the NAACP, the long civil rights movement, and African American history.

~John Kirk, George W. Donaghey Professor and Chair of the History Department at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock

In this insightful book, Woodley writes with great verve and confidence. As a result, Art for Equality will attract readers in a variety of fields from African American history to art history to American political history.

~Matthew Pratt Guterl, Brown University

Art for Equality is a terrific addition to the growing literature on the cultural dimensions of the African American freedom struggle which also throws important new light on the policies and practices of the NAACP from its inception to the 1960s. Deeply researched, engagingly written, and persuasively argued the book offers a pioneering examination of how the Association formulated a series of cultural strategies to challenge racist stereotypes, encourage more positive and empowering depictions of African Americans, and expose the brutal realities of racial oppression to white Americans. Woodley's close attention to debates within NAACP, as it navigated the competing claims of "high and low" culture and the imperatives of both "art and propaganda" across a wide range of media and art forms, offers a new perspective on tensions within the Association and a new way to measure its contribution to the struggle.—Brian Ward, Professor in American Studies, Northumbria University

Art for Equality [is] a necessary contribution to African American social and cultural histories.

~Journal of Southern History

This fascinating assessment of the power of the arts (yet another side of W. E. B. Du Bois's declaration that "All Art Is Propaganda") discusses the theories behind a cultural strategy for the organization, as well as several different art forms utilized in this cultural campaign. This is a book worth reading and is particularly useful to historians of the Harlem Renaissance, the civil rights movement, and American cultural studies. The book is beautifully produced.

~American Historical Review

Art for Equality appeals to academic and lay audiences alike with its clear, engaging style and sophisticated close readings of literary and visual arts texts. Scholars of cultural studies, film studies, African American history, American history, and those with a critical interest in the relationship between visual culture and politics will find it particularly informative and open to interpretation.

~Louisiana History Review