Preserving a Black History reading list for the future

In 2023, The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) at the Smithsonian launched an incredible summer reading program based on the exhibition, Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures. Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic that stretches across art, music, and literature and weaves together science-fiction, history, and technology to explore the African-American experience.

The Afrofuturism reading guide was written for educators and students, but there is something for everyone on this list: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, music, memoir, comic books, and graphic novels. The featured authors include luminaries like Octavia E. Butler and W.E.B. Du Bois, contemporary authors including Nnedi Okorafor, Marlon James, and N.K. Jemisin, and cultural legends like Janelle Monáe and LeVar Burton.

As we write this, an unconstitutional dismantling of the U.S. government is underway. Federally-funded programs are under attack and public resources are being disappeared from government websites. We want to make sure that this Black History resource is preserved when Trump comes for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Smithsonian, as promised by the architects of Project 2025.

Following the guidelines published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to keep information alive in the face of government censorship, we have taken steps to archive the Afrofuturism reading list on our website and preserve the exhibition website on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. If there are public resources you care about online, we highly recommend taking action today to preserve them.

Silent Book Club receives no funding from the federal government or the venture capitalists sponsoring this coup, so we will not be silenced by sadists and billionaires. Our work to bring communities together, to fight against censorship and book bans, and to support human rights will continue. Do not fall victim to despair.

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