A Celebration of Blackness

What does it mean to be Black and alive right now?

That question is at the heart of Black Futures, a beautiful and urgent new book edited by Kimberly Drew ’12 and Jenna Wortham. Drew is a writer, curator, activist—and 2021 Smith College medalist. Wortham is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and co-host of the podcast Still Processing. The pair compiled more than 500 packed pages of contributions from contemporary Black artists, activists, thinkers and creators. The wide-ranging submissions include essays, poems, artworks, tweets, song lyrics and recipes. In a starred review, Kirkus calls the volume “a must-own compendium illustrating the richness, joy and power of the modern Black experience.”

In a March 1 virtual event at Smith, Drew and Wortham discussed Black Futures with Thelma Golden ’87, director and chief curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, and Amanda Williams, the inaugural artist-in-residence at the Smith College Museum of Art. See a video of their conversation at the Smith College Facebook page.

BLACK FUTURES
Kimberly Drew ’12 and Jenna Wortham
One World, December 2020

This story appears as part of the Smithies Create column in the Spring 2021 issue of the Smith Alumnae Quarterly.

Photograph by Tyler Mitchell