High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Black Arts Movement or BAM is the artistic branch of the Black Power movement. It was started in Harlem by writer and activist Amiri Baraka (born Everett LeRoi Jones).Time magazine describes the Black Arts Movement as the "single most controversial moment in the history of African-American literature – possibly in American literature as a whole." The Black Arts Repertory Theatre is a key institution of the Black Arts Movement.