During the Progressive Era, when lilies were gilded and political parties were run by corporate marauders, American novelists like Upton Sinclair, Edith Wharton, and Theodore Dreiser used creative expression to bring social issues to public consciousness. When the Black Power movement of the 1960s began gaining momentun, its political work was balanced by a host of novels, paintings, poetry, music, and dance that shifted conversations of identity, racial pride, and equality into an artistic context.
