Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures explores the evolving and exhilarating concept of Afrofuturism, a lens used to imagine a more empowering future for the Black community through music, art, and speculative fiction. Afrofuturism offers a framework of radical potential to envision Black liberation and alternatives to oppressive structures like white supremacy.
The book offers a bold and essential history of a growing cultural movement, investigates the power of speculative work to connect with activist goals, reconstructs Black narratives unburdened by oppression, and celebrates the revolutionary power of Black imagination. It was published by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture as a companion book to their Afrofuturism exhibit.
Kevin Strait and Kinshasha Holman Conwill, the coeditors of AFROFUTURISM, are joining us with Joshua M. Myers on the Busboys stage to discuss the book, exhibit, and concept of Afrofuturism. Signed copies of the book will be available for purchase during and after the event.
This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 5:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of AFROFUTURISM will be available for purchase before and after the event. Please note that this event is IN PERSON and will ALSO be livestreamed.
We ask that guests RSVP in order to receive direct updates about the event from Busboys and Poets Books
The National Museum of African American History and Culture is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, history, and culture.
Kevin Strait is a museum curator who has worked on the permanent exhibitions “Musical Crossroads” and the “Power of Place,” as well as leading the Afrofuturism exhibition.
Kinshasha Holman Conwill is Deputy Director Emerita of the National Museum of African American History & Culture, and is lead editor for projects ranging from exhibition catalogs to books on the museum’s collections, including Dream A World Anew: The African American Experience and the Shaping of America and We Return Fighting: World War I and the Shaping of Modern Black Identity.
Joshua M. Myers is an Associate Professor of Africana Studies in the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. He is the author of Holy Ghost Key, the winner of the 2023 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Prize (Broadside Lotus Press, due February 2024), Of Black Study (Pluto, 2023), Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition (Polity, 2021), and We Are Worth Fighting For: A History of the Howard University Student Protest of 1989 (NYU Press, 2019), as well as the editor of A Gathering Together: Literary Journal.
