Looking at art actively encourages us to engage with difficult topics and questions. From the Civil Rights movement to today, Black creators have worked hard to uplift the voices of their community and to make their work reflective of the struggles they have faced. Let’s take a look at how some modern Black creators have used art to communicate their messages!

Steve McCurry is one of America’s finest photographers and photojournalists today, known for his colorful and introspective portraits of individuals from areas of conflict, especially his image, “Afghan Girl”. He focuses on photographing people from different parts of the world and different civil and political conflicts, whether in Afghanistan, Tibet, Lebanon, or former Yugoslavia, and shows the consequences of war and violence on humans.

Below you can discover just a handful of the many incredibly talented contemporary American artists from the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries!