tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/wakanda-49926/articlesWakanda – The Conversation2022-11-25T12:33:37Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1951572022-11-25T12:33:37Z2022-11-25T12:33:37ZBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever reclaims the myth of an African utopia<p>Black Panther is set in the fictional country of Wakanda. The creation of the Wakandan African identity has been a contentious issue. Borrowing aspects of cultures from around Africa, it presents the world with a confusing sense of “Africaness”. </p>
<p>Wakanda is an amalgamation of African ethnic groups, with its “indigenous” outfits and symbols: cowry shells adornments, grass skirts, decorative scarring and lip plates. The average viewer won’t know that the language being spoken is <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/xhosa">Xhosa</a>, a South African language, or that some of the garments are made with <a href="https://www.housebeautiful.com/design-inspiration/a33670853/what-is-kente-cloth/">Ghanaian Kente cloth</a> and designs. </p>
<p>Africa is a continent of 54 countries that are diverse culturally and geographically. But this “borrowing” could suggest that they were one and the same, their cultural markers shared and interchangeable. </p>
<p>So I was ready to be critical of Wakanda Forever and how it returns to stereotypes of Africa, collapsing different civilisations (many of which have fought each other) into digestible but erroneous “myths” of a homogenous Africa. </p>
<p>And yet, I was mesmerised.</p>
<h2>An African ‘homeland’</h2>
<p>Wakanda Forever is a powerful meditation on grief and power. King T'Challa is dead and his family must pick up where he left off. Wakanda, previously believed to be a small weak nation, has made the true extent of its power known to the world, which also opens it up to foreign aggression. </p>
<p>It made me reconsider the importance of the myth of Africa as a place of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41819054">harmony and welcome</a> – an idealised Black space – for people across the African diaspora, especially for <a href="http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/freedom/1917beyond/essays/harlem.htm">Black people in the US</a>. The dream of returning to Africa for many colonised Black people in the Americas, even in death, was pervasive and could be heard in the rhetoric of Black leaders such as <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/garvey_marcus.shtml">Marcus Garvey</a>.</p>
<p>My own grandfather, born on a plantation in colonial Martinique, took his family to live in Senegal as he felt a calling from his “homeland”. He wanted to be embraced by his “African brothers and sisters”. The reality was very different and it took time for him to be accepted.</p>
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<p>The US has historically been less connected to African cultures than many Caribbean nations. The lifespan of enslaved people in the Caribbean during the plantation period, due to horrific conditions, was very short. This meant there were <a href="https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teacher-resources/historical-context-facts-about-slave-trade-and-slavery">low birth rates among the enslaved population</a>.</p>
<p>New African captives were brought to keep the workforce stable, renewing African cultural connections. Wakanda is then, perhaps, a reflection of Black America’s lost connections, their dreams of a Black African utopia.</p>
<p>Wakanda evokes an Africa free of western colonial destruction. It’s resources and traditions have not been eroded. Its sense of culture is strong. And, left to develop at its own speed without foreign intervention, it’s a technologically advanced and superior nation. </p>
<p>In the film, the Wakandans are positioned a people who avoided colonisation by turning inwards. They become the smallest but most powerful kingdom in existence, refusing to share their precious materials with the rest of the world or take part in global affairs. In the first Black Panther, after seeing what life was like for the formerly enslaved Africans in the US, T'Challa decides to open up and let people know about his country’s powerful metal resource, vibrainium. </p>
<p>Elements of a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/black-nationalism">Black nationalist philosophy</a>, based on the idea of empowering and uniting Black people who share a history of oppression and exploitation drive the kingdom of Wakanda as a Black utopia. This is symbolised by the “African” marketplace scenes in which food is in abundance and people dressed in traditional “African” clothing (with a futuristic twist) smile and shop in intergenerational harmony. </p>
<p>Some Black nationalists also advocated the establishment of a Black society separate from white people, a Black nation which flourishes in economical and cultural independence. Where Wakanda moves away from this ideology is in its lack of real interest in supporting Black people outside of Wakanda and reaching out to unite the disenfranchised Black diaspora. </p>
<h2>Reclaiming ritual</h2>
<p>The film celebrates the reclamation of an African identity through references to creation myths and diasporic storytelling traditions where ancestral wisdom is passed down through the generations. </p>
<p>Actor Chadwick Boseman, the Black Panther star who died of colon cancer aged 43, looms large in Wakanda Forever. The narrative itself centres around Princess Shuri coming to terms with her the death of her brother T'Challa, her feelings of inadequacy and her need for revenge.</p>
<p>If you don’t connect with your ancestors, we are told, you will remain in a state of spiritual stasis. Wakandan funerals draw from <a href="https://www.instyle.com/black-panther-wakanda-forever-mourning-6828920">Yoruba Orisha ceremonies</a> with mourners dressed in white and pouring of libations for the ancestors.</p>
<p>The queen mother processes her grief in “the bush”, sitting with her pain and performing ancestral rituals. She tells her daughter she has found her son “on the breeze, pushing her like a hand on her shoulder”. Shuri rejects this and the rituals, and her lack of faith is the main barrier to her success in leadership.</p>
<p>A popular counter-narrative to discrimination for people of African descent is the insistence that all our African ancestors were the “<a href="https://www.theroot.com/maybe-my-ancestors-were-kings-and-queens-but-more-than-1822038353">kings and queens</a>” of great <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2020/09/beyond-african-royalty">kingdoms and empires</a>. </p>
<p>Yet at the heart of any kingdom is an uneven distribution of power and wealth and successful empires often rely on exploitation, theft and slavery. Thankfully, Wakanda Forever avoids the complete romanticisation of powerful monarchies, revealing the corrosive nature of the desire for control, the problem with unchallenged hierarchies and the stupidity of war.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195157/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Zobel Marshall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The film sees myths created by the Black diaspora come alive as Wakanda is presented as a Black utopia.Emily Zobel Marshall, Reader in Postcolonial Literature, Leeds Beckett UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1946462022-11-23T14:03:47Z2022-11-23T14:03:47ZBlack Panther in the classroom: how Afrofuturism in a film helped trainee teachers in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495637/original/file-20221116-145-s91scs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Letitia Wright in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marvel Studios/Disney</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Back in 2018 I joined the millions of people who flocked to cinemas worldwide to watch Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther. The story of an ultra modern African society not shaped by colonialism was celebrated by critics and audiences alike as “<a href="https://time.com/black-panther/">revolutionary</a>”. It won three Oscars. Now its sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, is dominating box office returns and delighting critics.</p>
<p>While I enjoyed and was entertained by the first film, I was also struck by its potential as a teaching tool. Its Afrofuturistic approach – using the past to imagine futures that differ from existing historical narratives – could, I thought, be a catalyst for dispelling myths about African history, culture and tradition. It might be a way to help my students – trainee teachers at a South African institution – overcome cognitive injustice. This is the idea that some forms of knowledge are more significant than others.</p>
<p>Eurocentrism, which is based on a biased view of western or European knowledge at the expense of knowledge from the global south, leads to cognitive injustice. </p>
<p>As I’ve <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.20853/32-4-2922">explored</a> in <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/ersc/v7nspe/06.pdf">my research</a>, students at a university in the global south might experience cognitive injustice when the curriculum is dominated by western thought and knowledge.</p>
<p>Overcoming their own sense of cognitive injustice is a powerful way for educators to enable their students to question and transform society’s unbalanced power relations. This is especially urgent in a South African society troubled by <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/ramaphosa-says-number-of-women-murdered-in-south-africa-up-50-percent/6818242.html">gender-based violence</a>, <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-06-27-the-rise-of-xenophobia-is-south-africas-road-to-ruin/">xenophobia</a>, <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sunday-tribune/news/parents-slam-christian-primary-school-over-monkey-jibe-64c628e1-0b42-460c-a547-1d1a2295acf6">racism</a> and <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/03/09/new-world-bank-report-assesses-sources-of-inequality-in-five-countries-in-southern-africa">social inequality</a>. </p>
<p>So I conducted <a href="https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/ctl_00080_1">a study</a> in which I examined whether seeing Black Panther influenced future teachers to think differently about their identities and relationships with others. I used the film to introduce them to the concept of Afrofuturism. I found that Black Panther made a significant contribution to the students’ awareness by reinforcing the idea that people should be proud of how they look, and that beauty is not tied to a grand, western or global standard, but is, rather, fluid and different for each person.</p>
<p>By understanding the importance of identity and using teaching methods that are sensitive to different cultures, these teachers will be better able to promote diversity in their future classrooms.</p>
<h2>Varying messages</h2>
<p>Fifty-two trainee teachers were involved in the study. They were asked to see the film in cinemas and we then discussed what they learned from it.</p>
<p>The students identified with several aspects of Black Panther, often depending on their own place in society. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/afrofuturism-and-its-possibility-of-elsewhere-the-power-of-political-imagination-166002">Afrofuturism and its possibility of elsewhere: The power of political imagination</a>
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<p>For instance, some of the female students found the film’s message of gender equality to be the most interesting aspect. These students perceived a connection between the many roles portrayed by the black actresses in the film and their capacity for both physical and emotional expression. They further seemed to have had the insight that a society’s power dynamics may be shaken up when women are given equal status within that society.</p>
<p>Most of the female students held the belief that the way women are treated in their communities or society renders them helpless. However, several of them felt inspired by the film to take a stand against the many forms of discrimination that, in today’s culture, make it difficult for roles to be shared equitably.</p>
<p>Several students felt the systems and structures of many modern African communities demonstrated that the continent was still subject to the policies of globalisation rather than developing its own policies, tailored to its requirements. </p>
<h2>Challenging norms</h2>
<p>A few other students expressed their views on the importance of challenging political norms, as well as resisting orthodox ways of thinking. They were firmly on the side of decolonisation – pulling entirely away from global north influence, theories and knowledge systems.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/black-panther-wakanda-forever-continues-the-series-quest-to-recover-and-celebrate-lost-cultures-193508">'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' continues the series' quest to recover and celebrate lost cultures</a>
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<p>Others, though, insisted that it was essential to collaborate with others from across the globe rather than to operate in isolation. They argued that western and European knowledge had value but that African knowledge and policies ought to be at the centre of learning and teaching on the continent.</p>
<p>In my opinion, schools in South Africa are lacking a social justice curriculum that would teach students about the concept of cognitive injustice. Students should constantly be immersed in a welcoming learning environment that acknowledges and appreciates their individuality, while also fostering a feeling of community among their peers. Black Panther’s Afrofuturistic perspective, in my opinion, encourages students to reflect on what makes them unique and to be receptive to discussions on the impact of gender stereotypes and racism on their experiences in the classroom and beyond.</p>
<p>Using Black Panther as a way into exploring Afrofuturism led to decolonial ideas. That, in turn, could alter the students’ future classrooms if they take up these ideas in teaching and learning. Those classrooms would be fairer and more inclusive, giving pupils a chance to speak up and challenge society’s norms, values and attitudes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194646/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zayd Waghid does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Black Panther and its sequel are more than just good movies: they can be used as teaching tools.Zayd Waghid, Associate professor, Cape Peninsula University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1082502019-01-23T11:47:04Z2019-01-23T11:47:04ZInside the Kingdom of Haiti, ‘the Wakanda of the Western Hemisphere’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254568/original/file-20190118-100264-1ee8g4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An 1811 wood engraving depicts the coronation of King Henry.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/henri-christophe-1767-1820-granger.jpg">Fine Art America</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a historian of Haitian literature and culture, I was excited to learn that Haiti plays a central role in “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9114286/">Black Panther: Wakanda Forever</a>.” There are two lengthy scenes that take place in the Caribbean nation and feature original footage shot in the country. </p>
<p>It’s a fitting gesture: The fictional kingdom of Wakanda has a real-life corollary in the historic Kingdom of Hayti, which existed as a sort of Wakanda of the Western Hemisphere from 1811 to 1820. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/why-haiti-should-be-at-the-centre-of-the-age-of-revolution">Haitian Revolution</a> led to the creation of the first free Black state in the Americas. But the world was hardly expecting a former enslaved man named Henry Christophe to make himself the king of it. </p>
<p>Media accounts from the era, some of which I’ve collected <a href="https://lagazetteroyale.com/">in a digital archive</a>, serve as a window into a brief period of time when the kingdom stood as a beacon of Black freedom in a world of slavery. Yet, <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/02/wakanda-utopia-impossible-blame-human-nature/">like Wakanda</a>, the Kingdom of Hayti wasn’t a utopia for everyone.</p>
<h2>A new kind of kingdom</h2>
<p>On Jan. 1, 1804, <a href="https://thenib.com/haitian-revolution">an army led by former enslaved Africans</a> in the French colony of Saint-Domingue staved off France’s attempt to bring back slavery, and declared themselves independent and free forever.</p>
<p>The leader of the revolutionaries, <a href="http://theconversation.com/meet-haitis-founding-father-whose-black-revolution-was-too-radical-for-thomas-jefferson-101963">General Jean-Jacques Dessalines</a>, had defeated Napoleon’s famous army and made himself emperor of the newly-renamed Haiti.</p>
<p>But in October 1806, Dessalines was assassinated by political rivals, leading the country to be divided into two separate states: General Henry Christophe named himself president of the northern part of Haiti, while General Alexandre Pétion governed a completely separate republic in the southern and southwestern part of the country. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254549/original/file-20190118-100267-gmvmfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254549/original/file-20190118-100267-gmvmfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254549/original/file-20190118-100267-gmvmfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254549/original/file-20190118-100267-gmvmfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254549/original/file-20190118-100267-gmvmfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254549/original/file-20190118-100267-gmvmfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254549/original/file-20190118-100267-gmvmfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">‘I am reborn from my ashes’ was the motto of Henry I, the former slave who became king.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Henry_I%2C_King_of_Haiti.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>In March 1811, President Henry Christophe surprised everyone when he anointed himself King Henry I and renamed the northern republic, the Kingdom of Hayti. Henry I soon had a full court of nobles that included dukes, barons, counts and knights to rival that of royal England.</p>
<p>Haiti’s first and only kingdom immediately attracted the attention of media outlets from around the world. How could there be a republic on one side of the island and a monarchy on the other, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=T-JGAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=niles+weekly+register+First+monarch+crowned+CHristophe&source=bl&ots=eglFJd3oHe&sig=ACfU3U1zIocAEbAb0c1d-w7h3AelrQBTnQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiWwqG56_nfAhXGo1kKHcioAv8Q6AEwBnoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false">they wondered</a>? Was the new Black king trying to mimic the same white sovereigns who had once enslaved his people, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=aFg8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA168&lpg=PA168&dq=%22%E2%80%9Cbaroness+Big+Bottom%22&source=bl&ots=jGxRhH0IOC&sig=ACfU3U2-gi0d0npsToYiaCrkgf-yYuVc0w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwit-5GSqvzfAhUFr1kKHedwAG0Q6AEwDHoECAAQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false">others asked</a>? </p>
<p>The edicts establishing the royal order of Haiti were immediately <a href="http://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00008972/00001/2j">translated into English</a> and printed in Philadelphia, while many American and British newspapers and magazines ran celebrity profiles of the Haitian king. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=aFg8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA103&lpg=PA103&dq=%22elegant+model+of+an+hercules%22&source=bl&ots=jGxRdF3MSE&sig=l8AgTxQ21Hp4MlLNUIZPwC1KG6k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjm2N-rmvDfAhWIjFkKHV7kCckQ6AEwAHoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22elegant%20model%20of%20an%20hercules%22&f=false">One newspaper</a> described him as “the elegant model of an Hercules.” <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/96049911/">Another described him</a> as “a remarkably handsome, well-built man; with a broad chest, square shoulders, and an appearance of great muscular strength and activity.”</p>
<h2>The ‘First Monarch’ of the ‘New World’</h2>
<p>In 1813, construction of the opulent <a href="https://toussaintlouverturefoundation-or.doodlekit.com/home/palais-sans-souci">Sans-Souci Palace</a> – meaning literally “without worry” – was completed. </p>
<p>The palace was partially destroyed by an earthquake in 1842; today, its remains have been designated a <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/180">world heritage UNESCO site</a>.</p>
<p>During its heyday, the palace dazzled.</p>
<p>There were the elegantly manicured gardens and a unique, <a href="http://www.esclavage-memoire.com/lieux-de-memoire/palais-de-sans-souci-citadelle-laferriere-parc-national-historique-29.html">domed cathedral</a>. The structure was flanked by a dramatic <a href="http://www.haititourisme.gouv.ht/pages/1/11-histoire.php#prettyPhoto%5B1%5D/0/">double staircase</a> leading to the entryway and two arches detailed with etchings and inscriptions. One acknowledged Henry, rather than Jean-Jacques, as the country’s “founder.”</p>
<p>There were also <a href="http://lagazetteroyale.com/1815/07/19-juin-1815/">two painted crowns</a> on the principal palace façade, each of which stood at 16 feet tall. The one on the right read “To the First Monarch Crowned in the New World.” The one on the left said “The Beloved Queen Reigns Forever Over Our Hearts.” </p>
<p>King Henry lived in the palace with his wife, <a href="http://thepublicarchive.com/?p=3608">Queen Marie-Louise</a>, and his <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/797840890211726795/">three children</a>, Prince Victor Henry, and the princesses, Améthyste and Athénaire. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254622/original/file-20190120-100285-1imffb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254622/original/file-20190120-100285-1imffb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254622/original/file-20190120-100285-1imffb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254622/original/file-20190120-100285-1imffb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254622/original/file-20190120-100285-1imffb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254622/original/file-20190120-100285-1imffb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/254622/original/file-20190120-100285-1imffb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">An April 1815 issue of The Gazette Royale details how the Kingdom of Hayti foiled France’s attempt to reconquer its former colony.</span>
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<p>Newspapers around the world reprinted articles from the monarchy’s official newspaper, the <a href="https://lagazetteroyale.com/about/">Gazette Royale d’Hayti</a>, detailing the royal family’s lavish dinners, replete with <a href="http://lagazetteroyale.com/1816/08/22-aout-1816/">bombastic speeches</a> and lengthy toasts to famous contemporary figures such as King George III of England, U.S. President James Madison, the King of Prussia, and the “friend of humanity,” the “immortal” British abolitionist <a href="http://abolition.e2bn.org/box.html">Thomas Clarkson</a>. </p>
<p>The Gazette <a href="http://lagazetteroyale.com/1816/08/26-aout-1816/">also recounted</a> the decadence of Queen Marie-Louise’s August 1816 official birthday celebration, which lasted for 12 days and had 1,500 people in attendance. On the final day of the party, 12 cannons fired after the Duke of Anse toasted the queen as “the perfect model of mothers and wives.” </p>
<h2>A free island in a sea of slavery</h2>
<p>There was much more to King Henry’s reign than luxurious parties. </p>
<p>On March 28, 1811, King Henry installed a constitutional monarchy, a move lauded by many in the British elite. The famous British naturalist Joseph Banks championed Henry’s 1812 book of laws, titled the “Code Henry,” <a href="https://archive.org/details/ASPC0001978900/page/n15">calling it</a> “the most moral association of men in existence.”</p>
<p>“Nothing that white men have been able to arrange is equal to it,” he added. </p>
<p>Banks admired the code’s detailed reorganization of the economy, from one based on slave labor to one – at least in theory – based on <a href="http://www.paulclammer.com/2015/henry-christophe/">free labor</a>. This transformation was wholly fitting for the formerly enslaved man-turned-king, whose motto was “<a href="http://thepublicarchive.com/?p=3595">I am reborn from my ashes</a>.”</p>
<p>The code provided for shared compensation between proprietors and laborers at “a full fourth the gross product, free from all duties,” and it also contained provisions for <a href="http://lagazetteroyale.com/1818/01/25-janvier-1818/">the redistribution of any land</a> that had previously belonged to slave owners.</p>
<p>“Your Majesty, in his paternal solicitude,” one edict reads, “wants for every Haytian, indiscriminately, the poor as well as the rich, to have the ability to become the owner of the lands of our former oppressors.”</p>
<p>Henry’s stated “paternal solicitude” even extended to enslaved Africans. While the <a href="http://faculty.webster.edu/corbetre/haiti/history/earlyhaiti/1807-const.htm">Constitution of 1807</a> had announced that Haiti would not “disturb the regimes” of the colonial powers, royal Haitian guards regularly intervened in the slave trade to free captives on foreign ships that entered Haitian waters. An <a href="http://lagazetteroyale.com/1817/10/10-octobre-1817/">October 1817 issue</a> of the Gazette celebrated the Haitian military’s capture of a slave ship and subsequent release of 145 of “our unfortunate brothers, victims of greed and the odious traffic in human flesh.”</p>
<h2>Too good to be true?</h2>
<p>Yet life in the Kingdom of Hayti was far from perfect.</p>
<p>Henry’s <a href="https://ageofrevolutions.com/2018/04/16/beyond-race-civil-war-regionalism-and-ideology-in-early-post-independence-haiti/">political rivals</a> noted that people frequently defected to the southern Republic of Haiti, where they told stories of the monarch’s favoritism and the aristocracy’s abuse of power.</p>
<p>Worse, Henry’s famous fortress, the <a href="http://www.citadellelaferriere.com/Citadelle-Laferriere-History.html">Citadelle Laferrière</a>, was, according to some accounts, <a href="http://lagazetteroyale.com/1818/03/31-mars-1818/">built with forced labor</a>. For this reason, Haitians have <a href="https://repository.duke.edu/dc/radiohaiti/RL10059-RR-0663_01">long debated</a> whether the imposing structure, which was restored in 1990, ought to symbolize the liberty of post-independence Haiti.</p>
<p>Henry’s dreams of a free Black kingdom would not outlive him. On Aug. 15, 1820, the king <a href="http://lagazetteroyale.com/acknowledgements/">suffered a debilitating stroke</a>. Physically impaired – and fearing a fracturing administration plagued by the desertion of some its most prominent members – Haiti’s first and only king killed himself on the night of Oct. 8, 1820. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255026/original/file-20190122-100288-unqitw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255026/original/file-20190122-100288-unqitw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255026/original/file-20190122-100288-unqitw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255026/original/file-20190122-100288-unqitw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255026/original/file-20190122-100288-unqitw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255026/original/file-20190122-100288-unqitw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1043&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255026/original/file-20190122-100288-unqitw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1043&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255026/original/file-20190122-100288-unqitw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1043&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Illustrator Mahlon Blaine depicts King Henry on the cover of the 1928 book ‘Black Majesty.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/paulclammer/status/463688990072115200/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheconversation.com%2Fdrafts%2F108250%2Fedit">@paulclammer/Twitter</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite some questions about living conditions in the Kingdom of Hayti, its ruler can still be recognized as a visionary. Even one of his most ardent rivals from the south, Charles Hérard Dumesle, who often referred to Christophe as a “despot,” nonetheless praised the remarkable “new social order” outlined in the Code Henry. Dumesle <a href="http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p15799coll58/id/42979">appeared to lament</a> that the king’s “civil laws were the formula for a social code that existed only on paper.”</p>
<p>For all those who still dream of <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/interview-keeanga-yamahtta-taylor/">Black liberation</a>, strong – if <a href="http://www.warscapes.com/reviews/black-panther-representation-without-taxation">ultimately flawed</a> – leaders, like both the King of Hayti and Black Panther, have always been central to these visions.</p>
<p>King Henry was even depicted as a sort of superhero in his time. As one article from 1816 <a href="http://lagazetteroyale.com/1816/08/26-aout-1816/">noted</a> of Henry,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“History demonstrates that no people has ever done anything great entirely by themselves; it is only ever in collaboration with the great men who become elevated in their midst that they raise themselves up to the glory of accomplishing extraordinary deeds.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on January 23, 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108250/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marlene Daut does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1811 a former slave named Henry Christophe anointed himself ‘First Monarch’ of the ‘New World.’ For 10 years, he ruled over a part of modern-day Haiti, becoming a global media sensation.Marlene Daut, Professor of French and African American Studies, Yale UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/935432018-03-28T22:56:08Z2018-03-28T22:56:08Z‘Black Panther’ villain can teach us about revolutionary history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212259/original/file-20180327-109204-1po0wbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Killmonger, the evil villain of 'Black Panther,' has plans of global insurgencies to liberate Black people. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Marvel/Disney)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Black Panther’s</em> Erik Killmonger is the quintessential super-villain. His character fulfils the requirements of the typical superhero movie with good guys versus bad ones and his demise at the end is inevitable.</p>
<p>How could we possibly find anything positive about him? Actually, there is much more to his character than just evil. In fact, I think his character has a lot to teach us.</p>
<p>Many critics have highlighted <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/03/01/forget-the-abusive-killmonger-wakandas-women-are-black-panthers-true-black-liberators/?utm_term=.e892661f71dc">his killings</a>, <a href="https://lasentinel.net/wishing-for-wakanda-marooned-in-america-movies-and-matters-of-reflection-and-resistance.html">his CIA connection</a> and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/02/black-panther-erik-killmonger/553805/">his imperialist power lust</a>. They focus on his bloody trail of slaughter and his destruction of the magical flowers that energize the spirit of Wakanda. </p>
<p>But consider his hate both for the oppressors of Black people and for the pretentious isolationism of Wakanda that cared nothing about Blacks elsewhere, and his plans of global insurgencies to liberate Black people.</p>
<p>While condemnation of Killmonger is to be expected, it’s unfortunate if it occludes his historical significance. Killmonger is larger, more complex, and deserving of more nuanced appraisal. His character reflects the anger, frustrations, hopes, yearnings and aspirations of young and old African-Americans today. </p>
<p>Killmonger’s character represents the dialectical struggles - the complex history of debates and raucous disagreements among African American leaders - over their conflicting strategies and methods to win freedom from slavery, colonialism, racism and oppression. </p>
<h2>Black liberation struggles</h2>
<p>Killmonger shares a central and enduring goal with many previous Black leaders; the dream of freedom for his people and of righting injustices against them. </p>
<p>Consider abolitionist <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2931.html">David Walker</a>, who in 1830, against the prevailing gradualism of the abolitionist movement, <a href="http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/walker/walker.html">circulated an appeal</a> for Blacks to resist their oppressors with violence. He argued that kidnappers and murderers of Black people were enemies of God whose death when being resisted was justified. </p>
<p>In an argument similar to Walker’s, abolitionist and minister Henry Highland Garnet in 1843 informed his fellow Blacks how sinful it was for them to submit to degradation and oppression, to “<a href="https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=etas">a state of slavery where you cannot obey the commandments of the Sovereign of the universe</a>.” Calling for a violent rebellion, he contended it was the Blacks’ “solemn and imperative duty to use every means both, moral, intellectual, and physical, that promises success.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212246/original/file-20180327-109196-1oh8wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212246/original/file-20180327-109196-1oh8wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212246/original/file-20180327-109196-1oh8wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212246/original/file-20180327-109196-1oh8wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212246/original/file-20180327-109196-1oh8wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212246/original/file-20180327-109196-1oh8wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212246/original/file-20180327-109196-1oh8wo4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ida B. Wells was a journalist who lead the first anti-lynching campaign in the United States. In 1892, she advocated that Black families own rifles to defend themselves.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://photoarchive.lib.uchicago.edu/db.xqy?one=apf1-08637.xml">(University of Chicago Photographic Archive, (apf1-08637), Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Frederick Douglass opposed this view and at the <a href="http://coloredconventions.org/files/original/73369fab9bb261275b57276ccbdbded2.pdf">1843 National Convention of Colored Citizens narrowly won the majority vote against it</a>. Soon though, Douglass shifted his position to favour the use of direct action against slavery while maintaining his belief in the unity of the United States.</p>
<p>Frustrated by government abdication of its duty to protect Blacks from the Jim Crow lynchings, the famous Ida B. Wells urged that “…<a href="http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=3&psid=3614">a rifle should have a place of honour in every Black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give</a>.” </p>
<h2>Killmonger reflects his environment</h2>
<p>As a special op in the U.S. army, Killmonger, née N'Jadaka (but also known as Erik Stevens), mastered the use of the rifle. There is a significant revolutionary symbolism to all this. <a href="https://www.biography.com/people/ida-b-wells-9527635">Ida B. Wells</a> applauded Black men who avoided being lynched because they armed themselves with the Winchester rifle. </p>
<p>Killmonger’s adoption of the violent revolutionary method also parallels revolutionary philosopher and Pan-Africanist <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=BdVRpzeA47YC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">Frantz Fanon.</a> Both of their experiences <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/fanon/#H1">participating as soldiers in violent national liberation struggles</a> shaped their dispositions to consider violence instrumental to physical and psychological liberation. </p>
<p>Erik Stevens grew up an orphan, experienced tough inner-city teen life and suffered racism and oppression. He was also roiled by what he felt was the needlessness of Blacks’ sufferings as he was aware of the technologically advanced Black Wakanda and their isolationist policy of not intervening to liberate other Blacks. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212262/original/file-20180327-109190-13jwx8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212262/original/file-20180327-109190-13jwx8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212262/original/file-20180327-109190-13jwx8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212262/original/file-20180327-109190-13jwx8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212262/original/file-20180327-109190-13jwx8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212262/original/file-20180327-109190-13jwx8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212262/original/file-20180327-109190-13jwx8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Killmonger’s ideas reflect historical debates around Black liberation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Marvel/Disney)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Killmonger responds to a history which tyrannized him and left him with no hope of remedy. His choice of method reflects his environment and his association with working class and unemployed Black people.</p>
<p>Like Marcus Garvey, the radical Black nationalist and pan-Africanist leader of UNIA, a back-to-Africa movement, Killmonger envisions an African empire led by technologically advanced Wakanda that straddles the Atlantic and that sends out liberation squads to turn the table of hegemony on the powers that oppress the Blacks. </p>
<p>Garvey, who pioneered this inverted hegemony idea, <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=QmMIAzoVt80C&pg=PA129&lpg=PA129&dq=marcus+garvey+is,+without+doubt,+the+most+dangerous+enemy+of+the+Negro&source=bl&ots=sbQ5j-cHvA&sig=brp76N3OCz6D6_XQGp4VkN1rFPo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwik2Znb7IzaAhXH6oMKHUtkAGIQ6AEIMjAC#v=onepage&q=marcus%20garvey%20is%2C%20without%20doubt%2C%20the%20most%20dangerous%20enemy%20of%20the%20Negro&f=false">was vilified as a lunatic and dangerous by the popular Black leader, W.E.B. Du Bois</a>. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, Garvey was ahead of other Black leaders of his time in rousing the popular masses, gaining their allegiance and devising cross-continental structures and ventures to help in his audacious plans to create an economically self-sufficient and militarily powerful Black empire to liberate all Blacks.</p>
<p>We should also note that Killmonger operated only within a delimited historical moment. He is not absolute. His choice of method cannot be the absolute solution either. </p>
<h2>Remember Malcolm X and MLK</h2>
<p>Neither Malcolm X nor Martin Luther King Jr. and their choices of method for liberation achieved that status either. Indeed, both contradictorily held aspects of the other’s strategy. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/01/14/martin-luther-king-jr-met-malcolm-x-just-once-the-photo-still-haunts-us-with-what-was-lost/?utm_term=.27873cb6c134">Malcolm X came around to modify his strategy. He eventually accepted the unity of all oppressed across colour lines. Before his death, he manifested the possibility that hate and love could follow each other serially as underpinnings for liberation</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212254/original/file-20180327-109193-s1iub9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212254/original/file-20180327-109193-s1iub9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212254/original/file-20180327-109193-s1iub9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212254/original/file-20180327-109193-s1iub9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212254/original/file-20180327-109193-s1iub9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212254/original/file-20180327-109193-s1iub9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212254/original/file-20180327-109193-s1iub9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">During months of anti-segregation campaigns in Albany, Georgia, Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested by Albany’s chief of police, Laurie Pritchett, after praying at City Hall in July 1962.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rev. King, while maintaining his faith in “militant, powerful, massive, non-violence,” said that he would not condemn civil right riots. King said <a href="http://www.gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/mlk-gp-speech.pdf">“a riot is the language of the unheard” and that “America …has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met.</a>” Even Mohandas K. Gandhi was emphatic that those unable to protect themselves by facing death with non-violence “<a href="https://www.mkgandhi.org/nonviolence/phil8.htm">may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor.</a>” </p>
<p>Douglass before them also changed his position from advocating moral suasion to a more robust political activism and violent resistance to preserve freedom won by fugitive enslaved.</p>
<p>Thus, Killmonger’s character addresses the problem of Black liberation. His presence challenges the power of popular media and the hegemonic ruling opinion to dictate the acceptable methods to obtain Black freedom. The idea of Killmonger highlights the power of a global ethos to legitimate or delegitimate these choices.</p>
<p>The shallow development of Killmonger’s character in the movie subverts the universal scope of his liberation plans as well as his character’s ability to bring conversations of historical Black liberation figures together.</p>
<p>Black leaders and their revolutionary strategies like those of Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, South Africa’s ANC and PAC, Mandela’s <em>Mkhonto we Sizwe</em>, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. all accomplished transformations in their societies. Their methods, conflicting and sometimes contradictory, provided answers over a stretch of time to different aspects of the big problem of liberation. </p>
<p>Each method fulfilled its role at auspicious moments that supported its popularity among significant sections of the oppressed Blacks. The simultaneous relevance and application of these conflicting methods in those struggles is evidence that no single method was sufficient for the purpose. </p>
<p>There has always been a Killmonger in the history of Black liberation struggles, and while history may not repeat itself, history often rhymes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93543/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>History Department
University of Guelph, Guelph, On. Canada.
I have in the past received research funding from Canada's Social Science and Humanities Research Council</span></em></p>The lead villain of Black Panther is a complex character who represents years of conflicting debates among African American leaders about how to achieve Black liberation.Femi Kolapo, Associate Professor, African History, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/914682018-02-15T16:08:48Z2018-02-15T16:08:48Z‘Black Panther’ roars. Are we listening?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206499/original/file-20180215-124886-18xcxrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Letitia Wright in _Black Panther_. Popular discussions about the movie demonstrate a desire for representation in commercial media. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Marvel/Disney)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Marvel Studios’ <em>Black Panther</em>, opening tonight in theatres across Canada and the United States, is pretty much guaranteed to be a hit. It <a href="http://deadline.com/2018/01/black-panther-advance-ticket-sales-record-fandango-superhero-movies-1202275304/">set records for advance ticket sales on Fandango</a>, its <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8099442/black-panther-soundtrack-number-1-debut-billboard-200">soundtrack album debuted in the No. 1 spot on the Billboard charts</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/comic-riffs/wp/2018/02/13/black-panther-is-now-on-track-to-be-the-biggest-february-opening-ever/">industry estimates point to opening-weekend revenues as high as US$170 million</a>. </p>
<p>Director Ryan Coogler and star Chadwick Boseman appeared on the cover of the industry trade magazine <a href="http://variety.com/2018/film/features/black-panther-chadwick-boseman-ryan-coogler-interview-1202686402"><em>Variety</em></a>, while <a href="http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/black-panther-michael-b-jordan-cover"><em>British GQ</em></a> styled actor Michael B. Jordan to recall Black Panther Party activists. The red-carpet premiere <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-panther-honouring-the-legacy-of-black-style-91067">made a splash on celebrity and fashion blogs</a>, and it’s <a href="http://variety.com/2018/digital/news/black-panther-twitter-record-2018-1202695436/">the most-tweeted-about film of the year</a>. Marvel’s had big hits before. But this feels like something different.</p>
<h2>Ahead of its time</h2>
<p>The Black Panther, also known as King T’Challa of Wakanda, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Black-Panther-comic-book-character">was created as a comic book hereo in 1966</a> by artist Jack Kirby and writer/editor Stan Lee. Although considered the first Black superhero in American comics, this is not the first time we’ve seen a Black superhero in the cinema. Comedian Robert Townsend gave us Meteor Man in 1993, Shaquille O’Neal portrayed the DC Comics character Steel in 1997 and Wesley Snipes starred as Blade the Vampire Hunter in three films beginning in 1998.</p>
<p>This is, however, the first Black-led superhero film since comic book movies became, in the words of <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=r4zdBwAAQBAJ">Liam Burke</a>, “modern Hollywood’s leading genre.” </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206496/original/file-20180215-124890-6v5s6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206496/original/file-20180215-124890-6v5s6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206496/original/file-20180215-124890-6v5s6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206496/original/file-20180215-124890-6v5s6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206496/original/file-20180215-124890-6v5s6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206496/original/file-20180215-124890-6v5s6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206496/original/file-20180215-124890-6v5s6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cover, <em>Black Panther (2016)</em> #1.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Grand Comics Database</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Much as T’Challa’s first appearance in print — in the <em>Fantastic Four</em> issue #52 in July 1966 — predated the founding of the Black Panther Party by a few months; the decision to bring him to the silver screen 50 years later ran ahead of major shifts in the discourse about diversity and representation in the entertainment industries. </p>
<p>The project was announced as part of Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in October 2014, a few months before <a href="http://www.reignofapril.com">April Reign</a> launched the hashtag <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=%23OscarsSoWhite">#OscarsSoWhite</a> to draw attention to the racialized economy of recognition in Hollywood, and more than a year before the <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=%23whitewashedOUT">#whitewashedOUT</a> campaign focused on the casting of white actors in roles written as Asian or Asian-American. It came before <em>Moonlight’s</em> dramatic win for Best Picture at the 2017 Academy Awards.</p>
<p>Sight still unseen by most, <em>Black Panther</em> has been embraced as a triumphant rejoinder in our long, difficult conversations about race and the legacies of colonialism and slavery. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/magazine/why-black-panther-is-a-defining-moment-for-black-america.html"><em>The New York Times Magazine</em></a> hails it as a “defining moment for black America,” while <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/the-black-panther-revolution-ishere/article37967876/"><em>the Globe and Mail</em></a> says its treatment of the Black experience “resonates across the diaspora.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206493/original/file-20180215-124909-1p63jic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206493/original/file-20180215-124909-1p63jic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206493/original/file-20180215-124909-1p63jic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206493/original/file-20180215-124909-1p63jic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206493/original/file-20180215-124909-1p63jic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206493/original/file-20180215-124909-1p63jic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206493/original/file-20180215-124909-1p63jic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael B Jordan and Chadwick Boseman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Marvel/Disney)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a short video clip I first encountered on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H97GhLWZR8">Twitter</a>, three young men admire the film’s poster, exclaiming, “This is what y’all feel all the time? I would love this country, too.” Activists, educators and scholars from racialized communities have long raised concerns about <a href="http://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/2286/3017">under-representation and stereotyping in the media</a> and <a href="http://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/Media-Impact-onLives-of-Black-Men-and-Boys-OppAgenda.pdf">their impact on self-esteem and identity</a>.</p>
<p>While it is difficult to draw a direct, causal line from watching a movie to an improved sense of self-worth or well-being, it is undeniable that <em>Black Panther</em> —with its nearly all-Black cast, stylish use of hip-hop, lush costuming, and setting in the proudly uncolonized, technologically advanced nation of Wakanda —is giving <a href="http://annenberg.usc.edu/sites/default/files/Dr_Stacy_L_Smith-Inequality_in_900_Popular_Films.pdf">many of us who have felt under-served by Hollywood</a> a language with which to speak our aspirations.</p>
<h2>Box office politics</h2>
<p>While echoing the broad picture of under-representation, <a href="http://bunchecenter.pre.ss.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/82/2016/02/2016-Hollywood-Diversity-Report-2-25-16.pdf">research conducted by Darnell Hunt, Ana-Christina Ramón and Michael Tran at UCLA’s Ralph Bunche Centre for African American Studies</a> also points to the positive incentives towards diversity. Canada and the U.S., which together make up the “domestic” film market, are becoming more diverse, and young people, who are the biggest purchasers of cinema tickets, are the most diverse of all. </p>
<p>As a result, according to Hunt, Ramón and Tran, films with diverse casts have higher global box returns and higher returns on investment. In a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/movies/black-panther-marvel-chadwick-boseman-ryan-coogler-lupita-nyongo.html"><em>New York Times</em> roundtable</a>, Coogler suggested that commercial media production provided a space that could harmonize marginalized communities’ aspirations for representation with economic imperatives:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They say it’s the studio system, but it’s really the people system. It’s who’s running the studio? How are they running it? When you look at Disney with [Tendo Nagenda, executive vice president for production at Walt Disney Studios, and Nate Moore, a producer at Marvel Studios and an executive producer of “Black Panther”], it’s a place that’s interested in representation, not just for the sake of representation, but representation because that’s what works, that’s what’s going to make quality stuff that the world is going to embrace, that’s what leads to success.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206501/original/file-20180215-124890-f48x55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206501/original/file-20180215-124890-f48x55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206501/original/file-20180215-124890-f48x55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206501/original/file-20180215-124890-f48x55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206501/original/file-20180215-124890-f48x55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206501/original/file-20180215-124890-f48x55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206501/original/file-20180215-124890-f48x55.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The studio’s embrace of diversity may be sincere but it is also strategic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Marvel/Disney)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Black Panther</em> is a case in point. Coogler and his stars speak movingly about the experience of making this film and what it means to them as African-Americans with more or less immediate connections to Africa. But, at the same time, the studio’s embrace of diversity is also a highly strategic move — 18 films into their mega-franchise. </p>
<p>While some critics have begun to call out the ossifying house style of “Marvel movies,” Coogler (like Taika Waititi, director of the recent <em>Thor: Ragnarok</em>) brings a distinctive aesthetic sensibility and critical reputation to bear. The studio may have gambled that the Black film-goers who supported recent films like <em>Hidden Figures</em> and <em>Get Out</em> would pick up the slack as producers reach deeper and deeper into Marvel Comics’ catalogue for characters with less existing brand recognition.</p>
<p>We have yet to see if the <a href="http://deadline.com/2018/02/black-panther-african-american-films-foreign-box-office-1202286475/">increasingly vital international audiences — often rhetorically brought up by studio executives as the obstacle to more diverse casting — will also respond positively</a>?</p>
<p>Marvel Studios and Disney did not make <em>Black Panther</em> in order to say something about race in America. It is, rather, a product designed to fit into a series, offering familiar pleasures with enough difference to keep the whole franchise interesting. </p>
<p>Yet, it arrives at a moment of possibility. Creators involved in its production, at the studio and on set, as well as audiences, have transformed it into a referendum on representation. </p>
<p>Putting different faces on movie screens will not solve all our problems, yet the <em>Black Panther</em> phenomenon demonstrates that people are crying out for chances to see themselves and their communities portrayed with dignity and diversity —as heroes, villains and everyone in between. Will the executives who control the purse strings listen ?</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fsT5SyBLlIg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">(Marvel/Disney)</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91468/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin Woo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Black Panther arrives at a moment of possibility. Its popularity demonstrates that people are crying out for chances to see themselves and their communities portrayed with dignity—as heroes.Benjamin Woo, Assistant Professor, Carleton UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.