What James Earl Jones can teach us about the activism of art in times of crisis

James Earl Jones preps in the dressing room before performing as Jack Jefferson in ‘The Great White Hope’ in December 1968. Harry Benson/Daily Express via Getty Images by Dominic Taylor, University of California, Los Angeles The death of James Earl Jones has forced me to consider the end of an era. Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier and Jones were giants in my industry. They were Black performers whose ascents to stardom occurred in the tumultuous 1960s, when I was an infant. All three were politically active, although each operated in a significantly different way. In 1967, there were more than 150 riots fueled by racial tensions in U.S. cities. Many Americans worried that the nation would implode over racial conflict, and President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed the Kerner Commission to study the sources of racial turmoil. At the time, Jones was an actor of growing renown on television and the theatrical stage. He had performed in “Danton’s Death” on Broadway and was featured on NBC’s “Tarzan,” among other projects. Jones found himself grappling with a question that has roiled many artists, then and now: In troubling times, what is an artist to do? He didn’t give rousing speeches, as Belafonte did....