The Color Line Les Artistes Africains-Americains Et La

The color line has long dominated relations between Blacks, Whites and mixed race, and often still does. Abolished in 1966 in the USA, racial segregation was widely evoked in African-American musics, inspiring masterpieces of dignity, humour, resistance and spirituality. Work songs, blackface minstrels, negro spirituals, calypso, jazz, blues, rock and gospel gave a beat to these intensely creative expressions. In partnership with the MusEe du Quai Branly Jacques Chirac, on the occasion of “The Color Line” exhibition in Paris, Bruno Blum tells the story of these 59 titles, from the Harlem Renaissance to the Civil-Rights movement, in a 24-page booklet. Patrick FREMEAUX