Baltimore’s Black Arts Then & Now brings to life the Chicory Revitalization Project, a public humanities initiative that revives Baltimore’s historic Chicory magazine. From 1966 to 1983, Chicory served as a powerful voice for working-class Black communities, capturing their thoughts, struggles, and dreams through unedited poetry and street chatter. Dubbed “the most authentic microphone of black folks talking ever devised” by the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper, Chicory emerged from the liberalism of the War on Poverty and the militance of the Black Arts Movement.

Since 2017, a group of former Chicory editors, scholars, librarians, poets, teachers, and young writers have collaborated to use Chicory as a catalyst for intergenerational dialogue on social justice, race, and place. Baltimore’s Black Arts Then & Now documents this joint effort, offering valuable insights for public historians, educators, and humanists.

Mary Rizzo is associate professor of history at Rutgers University-Newark. She is author of Come and Be Shocked: Baltimore beyond John Waters and The Wire. She is cofounder of the Chicory Revitalization Project and a Whiting Public Engagement Fellow. Rizzo lives in Newark, New Jersey.