As Trump attempts to rewrite the past and remove Black history from public discourse, we can look to these three artists who've already given us a roadmap, showing us how to resist, not just politically, but also culturally and personally.
Zora Neale Hurston defied literary and academic conventions by capturing the beauty of Southern Black folklife and refusing to sanitize it for anyone. She embraced the unfiltered dialect of Black rural life, all while being criticized by white audiences as well as her peers.
Using the pseudonym SAMO, Jean-Michel Basquiat took his dynamic graffiti from the streets to the art gallery. He used his art to confront racism, capitalism, and colonialism. His canvases were chaotic, beautiful, and defiantly Black, challenging what art truly was.
Gordon Parks' photography is globally revered, but his work in film is often overlooked. When he turned his camera to films like Shaft and Leadbelly, he centered Black narratives, highlighting the complexity of Black life with dignity, style, and power that broke away from the sanitized narratives of the time.
Hurston, Basquiat, and Parks vehemently refused to conform to white-centered norms. It wasn't simply an act of defiance, but one of liberation. They embody what it looks like to live and create on their own terms, in favor of radical honesty, cultural pride, and artistic sovereignty. True resistance means living free and authentically. In the face of authoritarianism and erasure, their work is a map of how to do so.