Larry Neal worked as a critic, poet, folklorist, playwright, filmmaker, editor, teacher, and administrator. His successful blending of these creative expressions, interpenetrated by a determined attempt to render the world meaningful in terms congruent with the black American experience, makes Neal an exemplary figure in the black arts movement--the creative efflorescence of black American artists that occurred between 1964 and 1973. The movement's major concerns were to articulate an aesthetic derived from actual and intuited black American experiences and to make the black American artist responsible to a black community. Attempts to realize these concerns were multifaceted and not confined to preconceived notions about evaluating and defining art. Much of Western-based critical methodology was dismissed as incapable of evaluating black art; further, art was viewed not as an artifact but as a process. The largest expression of art was life itself. Regardless of the black arts movement's ultimate uniqueness, philosophical...