Black Panther was a breath of fresh air! Even though the comic character has been around since the 1960s, the Marvel movie brought the Black positivity and future looking concept of Wakanda to a wider audience.

Our kids and us alike felt pride sharing quotes and nods to the movie, we argued over the story, was Killmonger the real hero?

It was just awesome all around, awesome seeing a movie so big and so Black and so positive.

Black Panther and a host of other comic book characters, literature and art has been working on imaging a world where the African diaspora thrives with the use of technology, where they overcome the shackles of slavery, in 1994 this concept was finally coined and it spawned a movement.

Afrofuturism

Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and philosophy of history that explores the developing intersection of African Diaspora culture with technology. It was coined by Mark Dery in 1994 and explored in the late 1990s through conversations led by Alondra Nelson. Afrofuturism addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technoculture and science fiction, encompassing a range of media and artists with a shared interest in envisioning black futures that stem from Afrodiasporic experiences. Seminal Afrofuturistic works include the novels of Samuel R. Delany and Octavia Butler; the canvases of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Angelbert Metoyer, and the photography of Renée Cox; the explicitly extraterrestrial mythoi of Parliament-Funkadelic, the Jonzun Crew, Warp 9, Deltron 3030, and Sun Ra; and the Marvel Comics superhero Black Panther.

Our future….

There is something extremely inspiring looking forward with positivity and at the same time not forgetting our past. Black Panther awoke this feeling for the first time in many of us, it inspired children of all ages, all genders and all mentalities. There is NO DOUBT that positivity and knowledge of our shared heritage and culture is good for us.

Afrofuturism is not only the imagination of a fantastical future it absolutely CAN be our future if we keep aspiring, working, growing and sharing.

Our children NEED to keep the Black Panther feeling going in order to fight the negative effects of this modern world on their wellbeing.

I challenge you to not only look to our past with our children and yourself but to imagine the amazing future. To dig deep into the world of Afrofuturism and to think about not only what could be but what will be.

Our children need this and our children are the ones that will mould this into reality.

WAKANDA FOREVER

Amazon has a HUGE amount of books, comics and more in the Afrofuturism genre, Click here to see some of the offerings.