Although the Black Arts movement drew a strong following, some black artists objected to its violent imagery and its rejection of traditional forms of black art, such as the blues and dialect poetry. Although Song of Solomon is a tribute to the movement — Morrison agrees that "the best art is political" — it also challenges some of the movement's basic tenets, including the role of black women in the largely black male-oriented movement, and reaffirms the place of black vernacular and the blues as an integral part of African-American art and culture. Through numerous conversations between Milkman and Guitar, Morrison explores some of the underlying principles of the Black Arts movement; through the friends' problematic relationships with women, she questions the validity and viability of the movement as the "spiritual sister" of the Black Power movement.
Song of Solomon demonstrates Morrison's commitment to black life and culture and examines the role of African Americans in relation to white mainstream society and the legacy of slavery on the history and experience of blacks in America. "I simply wanted to write literature that was irrevocably, indisputably Black," Morrison has said, "not because its characters were or because I was, but because it took as its creative task and sought as its credentials those recognized and verifiable principles of Black art." Although her work explores many of the major themes in African-American literature — for example, alienation versus identification, the search for roots/the journey home, and freedom and liberation — she repeatedly returns to what has become the overriding theme in her novels: the search for love and identity.
