History Main / Afrofuturism

-->'''Tarlton:''' Of course there's hope for you, my friend. For a while, on Earth, it looked like there was no hope! But when mankind on Earth learned to ''live together'', real progress suddenly began. The universe was suddenly ''ours''. The universe will be ''yours too''. Goodbye, my friend![[note]]He gave these parting words to the orange robot who guided him throughout the world of machines as he boarded his rocket to depart for home, but he could just as easily have said them directly to the reader.[[/note]]

-->'''Tarlton:''' Of course there's hope for you, my friend. For a while, on Earth, it looked like there was no hope! But when mankind on Earth learned to ''live together'', real progress suddenly began. The universe was suddenly ''ours''. The universe will be ''yours too''. Goodbye, my friend![[note]]He gave these words to the orange robot who guided him throughout the world of machines, but he could just as easily have said them directly to the reader.[[/note]]

* Creator/ECComics ran a story called "[[https://asylums.insanejournal.com/scans_daily/54803.html Judgement Day]]" in its ''Strange Fantasy'' comic in 1953, and later reprinted it in ''Incredible Science Fiction'' in '56, that could be seen as an early instance of this subgenre, despite being penned by a white writer, one Al Feldstein. In the story, a human representative from [[TheFederation The Galactic Republic]] is assessing a planet inhabited entirely by robots for possible Republic membership. He finds that the robots are divided into blue and orange races, with the blues [[FantasticRacism treated as second-class citizens]] and [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything required to use different battery-recharging stations]] despite being structurally identical. He concludes that the planet's civilization is not yet worthy of joining the Republic as long as their bigotry persists. Only in the final panel does the human character remove his space helmet, revealing that he is a black man. A bit lame and predictable today, perhaps, but in the mid '50s this was controversial stuff, and the use of a black protagonist caused serious trouble with UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode.
-->Of course there's hope for you, my friend. For a while, on Earth, it looked like there was no hope! But when mankind on Earth learned to ''live together'', real progress suddenly began. The universe was suddenly ''ours''. The universe will be ''yours too''. Goodbye, my friend!

* Creator/ECComics ran a story called "Judgement Day" in its ''Strange Fantasy'' comic in 1953, and later reprinted it in ''Incredible Science Fiction'' in '56, that could be seen as an early instance of this subgenre, despite being penned by a white writer, one Al Feldstein. In the story, a human representative from [[TheFederation The Galactic Republic]] is assessing a planet inhabited entirely by robots for possible Republic membership. He finds that the robots are divided into blue and orange races, with the blues [[FantasticRacism treated as second-class citizens]] and [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything required to use different battery-recharging stations]] despite being structurally identical. He concludes that the planet's civilization is not yet worthy of joining the Republic as long as their bigotry persists. Only in the final panel does the human character remove his space helmet, revealing that he is a black man. A bit lame and predictable today, perhaps, but in the mid '50s this was controversial stuff, and the use of a black protagonist caused serious trouble with UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode.

* Creator/ECComics ran a story called "Judgement Day" in its ''Strange Fantasy'' comic in 1953, and later reprinted it in ''Incredible Science Fiction'' in '56, that could be seen as an early instance of this subgenre, despite being written by Al Feldstein (who was white). In the story, a human representative from [[TheFederation The Galactic Republic]] is assessing a planet inhabited entirely by robots for possible Republic membership. He finds that the robots are divided into blue and orange races, with the blues [[FantasticRacism treated as second-class citizens]] and [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything required to use different battery-recharging stations]] despite being structurally identical. He concludes that the planet's civilization is not yet worthy of joining the Republic as long as their bigotry persists. Only in the final panel does the human character remove his space helmet, revealing that he is a black man. A bit lame and predictable today, perhaps, but in the mid '50s this was controversial stuff, and the use of a black protagonist caused serious trouble with UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode.

** Creator/TaNehisiCoates' 2018 ''Black Panther'' run is about a large group of Wakandan astronauts getting lost in space and time and retroactively establishing a galactic empire for Wakanda.

* ''Film/BlackPanther2018'' leans heavily into this trope, with the central conflict centered on how involved the technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda should become in the affairs of the world, more specifically the affairs of the Black Diaspora. The sequel ''Film/BlackPantherWakandaForever'' further builds on this by introducing another civilization (this time leaning to {{Mayincatec}}) with similar {{Unobtanium}} resources--posing questions regarding how postcolonial cultures can and should deal with the resource extraction of the Global North.

* ''Film/BlackPanther2018'' leans heavily into this trope, with the central conflict centered on how involved the technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda should become in the affairs of the world, more specifically the affairs of the Black Diaspora.

** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', "Far Beyond The Stars": Sisko experiences a series of visions of himself as Benny Russell, a black sci-fi writer in TheFifties. Russell ends up inspired by Sisko's memories to write a short story called "Deep Space Nine" only to have it rejected by his publisher for featuring a black captain of a space ship. The editor finally agrees to print the story, only for the publisher to pulp that entire magazine issue because of Russell's story, and Russell is ultimately fired. As he experiences an epic breakdown Russell delivers the following speech:

Afrofuturism is an artistic genre that melds SpeculativeFiction with the cultures and experiences of Black people around the globe[[note]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrofuturism As]] Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} puts it: "A cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and philosophy of history that combines elements of {{science fiction}}, {{historical fiction}}, {{fantasy}}, [[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Afrocentric Afrocentrism]], and {{magic realism}} with non-Western cosmologies in order to critique not only the present-day dilemmas of black people, but also to revise, interrogate, and re-examine the historical events of the past... Afrofuturism addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through a technoculture and science fiction lens, encompassing a range of media and artists with a shared interest in envisioning black futures that stem from Afrodiasporic experiences."[[/note]].

** Creator/TaNehisiCoates 2018 ''Black Panther'' run is about a large group of Wakandan astronauts getting lost in space and time and retroactively establishing a galactic empire for Wakanda.

* ''Series/TomSwift2022'' reimagines the [[Literature/TomSwift classic Edisonade hero]] as a black genius and explores how a black man navigates an industry that's usually dominated by white men.
* ''Series/{{4400}}'' is a science-fiction series exploring what happens when 4,440 people from different places and historical eras are suddenly brought into the modern day. Many of these new arrivals are black people from periods where they faced varying levels of racism and repression, and the series looks at the ways in which black people's lives in America have changed... and the ways in which they haven't.

* ''VideoGame/{{Wipeout}}'' has Assegai, a team representing the EU-like "United African Nations," based out of South Africa. They're a highly innovative team, with a new strategy every time they appear.

* The South African/Canadian sci-fi series ''Series/CharlieJade'' involves [[AlternateUniverse three different universes]] in its storyline. One of them, the "Alphaverse", is dystopian and completely cyberpunk, including [[CyberpunkWithAChanceOfRain lots of rain]]. Its counterpoint is the ecotopian "Gammaverse" (unpolluted, but rife with political corruption and social engineering). The neutral one is the "Betaverse", which is our own early 21st century world. The whole series takes place in the Cape Town region and very little info about the rest of the world is ever given. According to the series's script, both the Alphaverse and Gammaverse are supposedly [[AlternateHistory alternate histories]] of the Betaverse, with a divergence occuring shortly after WWII or during the early UsefulNotes/ColdWar period.

* The 2022 Creator/RoyalShakespeareCompany [[https://www.rsc.org.uk/much-ado-about-nothing/ production]] of ''Theatre/MuchAdoAboutNothing'' is set in a futuristic world with a mostly black cast and crew, costuming based on Ghanese Carnival outfits, and music based on Afrobeat and Afrobeats. The director has specifically described it as an Afro-futurist interpretation.

[[folder: Theatre]]

A key point of Dery's essay (and a driving force behind much Afrofuturistic work) is [[{{Applicability}} the amount of overlap between sci-fi tropes and African-American history]] -- as an example, he cites the similarity between African slaves and [[AlienAbduction alien abductees:]] captured by unknown and incomprehensible beings with advanced technology, shipped to a strange and alien world for sinister purposes, and frequently subjected to horrific medical abuse. Another common aspect of Afrofuturism is deliberate pushback against the lack of [[WhiteMaleLead black (or at least non-white) characters]] in science fiction, and stereotypes of Africa as a [[DarkestAfrica collection of primitive]] [[{{Bulungi}} third-world nations]] and its peoples as [[HollywoodNatives savages]] or poverty-stricken waifs who can't grasp superior Western technology.

* ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' champion Ekko, the Boy Who Shattered Time has an Afrofuturist sensibility: A street-smart, anti-authoritarian black kid capable of [[TimeMaster manipulating time with his high-tech equipment.]]

* In a way similar to the ''Shadowrun'' example, Africa appears in ''TabletopGame/Cyberpunk2020'' as a thriving continent thanks to UsefulNotes/{{ESA}} having built there a very important spaceport, not far away from the Kilimanjaro.

* Creator/ImageComics' ''Bitter Root'', a jazz age action-horror comic that surrounds the monster-hunting adventures of the African American Sangerye family. The series mixes hoodoo rootwork, dark alchemy, sharp racial commentary, and steampunk aesthetics in a different take on the monster hunting genre.

* ''ComicBook/FarSector'' brings in elements of this aesthetic in the City Enduring. It helps that about a third of the population resemble humans of African heritage, and the main character is an African American Green Lantern.

* ''ComicBook/FarSector'' brings in elements of this aesthetic in the City Enduring. It helps that about a third of the population resemble humans of african heritage, and the main character is an african american Green Lantern.

* ''TabletopGame/TranshumanSpace'' has a lot of preppy PostCyberpunk, but one of the biggest themes is that the degree of penetration is horribly uneven and the full benefits of the Fifth Wave of technological advancement are only available to the richest parts of the world. Africa is not one of the richest parts of the world, and it's straight {{cyberpunk}} if you're ''lucky''.

For speculative fiction that explores topics related to other marginalised groups, see FeministFantasy and SpeculativeFictionLGBT.