The Black Imaginary

Almost from the moment it hit the screens, commentators lauded Marvel’s Black Panther (2018) for allowing African Americans to connect to the African Diaspora in a way not seen in a generation. Based on a comic book, the film is lauded as an Afrofuturism masterpiece that has triggered celebration allowing black people.

Today, we live in a world where the public sees Afrofuturism as a means to reconnect with a rich cultural history rooted in and inspired by Africa. Exploring the culture behind the fantasy, an unspoken element of this cultural moment is a yearning to connect with a black past and the unbound potential of a black future. This link between the past and the future defines Afrofuturism. Defined in 1994 by cultural critic Mark Dery, Afrofuturism points to a tradition of black imagination that challenged the status quo and nurtured freedom throughout history.

My exhibit, “A Past Unremembered: A Black Speculative Odyssey,” co-curated with Phillip L. Cunningham, seeks to identify the historical roots of black imaginary that challenged racist assumptions and envision ways of seeing and doing that rejected the limitation imposed on people of African descent in the United States. This show explores notable works such as Martin R. Delany’s Blake or Huts of America (1859-1862) and Sutton E. Griggs's Imperium in Imperio (1899), works from the nineteenth century which made clear that African American rejected the nadir of the 1890s and imagined resistance in fantastic ways.

Within this exhibit, the subtle ways that blacks imagine themselves and re-imagined the United States will be a central concern. Using imagery drawn from book covers, illustrations, and text, we consider how black thought in speculative fiction from the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century inspired and conspired to re-shape the public sphere.

This exhibit is available at the University of Central Florida Library and Zora Neale Hurston Museum in Eatonville, Florida.