Abstract: The capacity of artistic works to speak directly to the emotions – to move us in one way or another – is a critical consideration in determining how an experience is to be represented and who should do the representation. When significant groups are left out of the national story, or when some groups dominate the storytelling, distortion is a likely result. But the distortion is not only of the past experience; it continues to influence the present and the future. It perpetuates harm. A powerful response to this harm comes from those who have been left out or whose experience has been distorted. Protest art serves to penetrate and challenge these distortions.

In the 19th century, also black writers joined the increasing criticism against slavery. Most prominent was former slave Frederick Douglas and his writings, describing the terrible abuses of the slaver masters. After the abolition of slavery in the USA in 1985, racist discrimination of African Americans did not stop. After Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation, lynchings and many forms of discrimination were prevalent, especially in the South. Important black writers were W.E.B. Dubois, and his contributions to the NAACP, also during international travels. Black sociologist Ida Wells was influential in her critical accounts of lynchings, as was feminist Anna Julia Hayward Cooper.