COME TOGETHER:
Interethnic Collaborations for Equity and Social Change in the 1970s
(page four)

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Community arts In the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1970s

Prompted by the civil rights movement and emerging social movements, community art centers took on an expanded role of developing artistic voices and talent in the 1960s. Primary concerns included the health, vitality, and equity of oppressed local communities, the nation, and globalscape:

The arts became an obvious and powerful vehicle in this cultural renaissance, a vehicle through which minority-group artist-leaders could begin to voice the social and economic concerns of their communities, to assert a new-found historical identity, and to reflect the new sense of ethnic pride and awareness they believe is essential to their survival in white America (National Endowment for the Arts and National Council on the Arts, Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1971).

By the 1970s, San Francisco artist-activists established significant neighborhood-based and ethnic-specific cultural organizations as outlets for community expression. Support came from federal, state, and local sources such as the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Expansion Arts Program, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), the California Arts Council, the San Francisco Art Commission Neighborhood Arts Program, and other progressive local sources.

Many artists and local supporters came together through collective art-making. In particular, murals and graphic arts emerged as major channels to publicly express cultural affirmations, social justice concerns, and political protest. This exhibition features a selection of graphic art prints and posters that encompass this creative community spirit.

Partial listing of San Francisco Bay Area community arts and printmaking
workshops established during the 1970s