Red Spring Part III: Afrofuturism & New Myths

"I believe that science fiction is the folklore and mythology of our modern, technological society, and fantasy preserves the folklore and mythology of the past. Blacks have made significant contributions to modern culture - not just as athletes and entertainers, but in science and technology as well. We need to contribute to this culture's mythology and folklore because we are part of it, and it is part of us. If we do not define our own position in our culture's mythology, someone else will define it for us, and we probably won't like the way they do it."

—Charles R. Saunders(July 12, 1946 - May 2020) from Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, 2000

As the world unfolds and reveals itself all around us—Afrofuturism, the Black Speculative Arts, and other Futurisms offer a powerful lens for creative exploration and imagination. The artistic expressions that occupy this global, constantly evolving space are broad, playful, at turns ominous and optimistic. Black artists in the United States have penned, published, and performed proto-Afrofuturistic visions of liberation and imagination for over 160 years. The mythologies and cultures they have drawn upon are ancient and new.

Drawing upon the rich history and heritage of Africa and her diaspora, today artists from Africa and around the world create futurisms that reflect their journeys and vision, new mythologies across mediums and genres that speak of transcendence and flight, alternate worlds, and new ways of being. The most revolutionary aspect of this work is the same that made the historic extraordinary—the fact that Black communities survive and thrive, that they boldly exist, now and in the future.

A-Fiction
by M. James Cooper, 2021


This is some sci-fi Octavia Butler shit!
So yes we are included in this thing.
This thing called promise,
this thing called new-advancement.
But beware the green men, the reaching tentacles.
Guard your vessels, secure the air within,
point your laser-weapons for peace
will be restored by the close of last chapter.
Black diamond, black promise we reign undefeated,
headed to that new galaxy...

Masterpiece
by M. James Cooper

Walk as slowly as you can.
Give your fantasies a chance to find you
& frame your reality;
Yes, a little to the left, just so.

Afrofuturists reimagine old gods and journey beyond colonial borders, space, and time. They choreograph new movements and reexamine traditional narratives, excavating the past to observe the rhythms of our present. With an eye toward the future and an ear for the songs and lessons of the past, these artists create a sense of wonder and curiosity, recasting the challenges of today with new worlds, new heroes, and new adventures.

When whole economies and national narratives are based on the devaluing of Black lives, Black unity and Black love are revolutionary acts. To love and prosper in the face of centuries-long plunder and exploitation, while bearing the brunt of real-time climate change, is no small feat or mere fantasy. Survival is key, but thriving is the ongoing dream. For what is the value of any imagined Afrofuture(s) if loving, compassionate, healthy, prosperous families and peaceful, abundant, justice-filled communities are not a foundation of that vision? In science fiction, an Africa with full autonomy and oversight of its own wealth and natural resources is a rare alternate future not often seen, but strong, optimistic, visionary thinkers on the continent and throughout her diaspora, rooted in the hope for themselves and their communities, work to imagine and build that future every day.

"Our art is our record. It is a time capsule that we bury inside ourselves for ourselves. It is what we know is in our hearts, and we add to it with each new generation of creators."



from "Twenty-Five Years in a 500 Year Long Song" foreword by Sheree Renee Thomas, The Black Speculative Arts Movement: Black Futurity, Art + Design, edited by Reynaldo Anderson and Clint Fluker, 2019

"Hidden in plain view, our cultural production contains coded messages. Whether it is material culture, in our music, songs, and choreography, or even in the scars on our backs, and the braid patterns in our hair, this coded language, hidden even in the mother tongues that we speak, is a body of a work that has been used over time to resist, to protest, to defend, to defeat those who would attempt to control our destinies."



from "Twenty-Five Years in a 500 Year Long Song" foreword by Sheree Renee Thomas, The Black Speculative Arts Movement: Black Futurity, Art + Design, edited by Reynaldo Anderson and Clint Fluker, 2019