My name is erica boddington and as youve heard on the ceo and founder of langston, a consulting curriculum firm specializes in culturally affirming instruction materials and writing for late night segment called how do we get here on the amber ruffin show . Speaking of how we got, were all here for roundtable entitled the souls of black folk telling our stories. Todays roundtable title is taken from w. E. B. Duboiss landmark book, the souls black folk. And in this regard, todays speakers will discuss how their work to the complex experiences of black people. The African Diaspora through fiction, drama and essay each featured here today will illustrate the ways in which his or her work speak to the complex experiences of black people in literature and i know were at the 16th National Black writers conference, but the speakers youre about to listen to are not living by the pen. Youll witnessing the unraveling of whitewashed history through the eyes of historians like dolan valdez, whose work plants its palms into american soil and pulls out narratives that are imagined and true all at once. Youll be looking at executive producers like jelani cobb, whose influence ranges from marvels luke cage, the newly released lincolns dilemma. Youll be listening to sci and fantasy tv comic book connoisseur like marlon james, whose works will be splashing our screens in the coming years. And well and that will be no surprise to any of us. Youll hear voices all too familiar because youve heard them times before, like kahlil gibran, whose words have graced many documents and Media Outlets, shaking the speakers, the archives simultaneously. Youll see pictures clearly like maza, mingus, who not only reclaims the diasporas narrative through her stories, but the black and white photography. And if that wasnt enough here the speakers, formal bios, jelani cobb is the director of the Center Journalism and civil and human rights at university and a professor at columbia Journalism School. He has been a staff writer at the new yorker since 2015. And in 2018 was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary. Hes the author and editor of. Six books, including the recently published the matter of black lives. Writing the new yorker his 2020 film, whose vote counts, received the peabody award for news documentary. He is also the author of the essential Kerner Commission report, which came out in fall 2021. His earlier book, the substance of hope barack obama and the paradox progress, was reissued in 2020. Marlon was born in jamaica in 1970. Hes the author a brief history of seven killings, the book of night woman and jim crows devil. His recent novel, moon which spider king second novel in jamess dark star trilogy, african fantasy, was published in february 2022. Hes a recipient of the 2015 man booker prize, the american award, the mansfield wolf prize for fiction, the literary peace prize, and was a finalist for the 2019 National Book award and is a fellow yardie muslim engage day is the author of the shadow king shortlisted for the 2020 booker prize and mississippis of the American Academy of arts and letters award in literature, as well as a Los Angeles Times book prize finalist. It was named the best book of 2018 by New York Times and time, elle and other publication. Beneath the lions gaze, her debut was selected by the guardian as one of the ten best contemporary african. Kahlil Gibran Muhammad is the Award Winning author of the combination of blackness race, crime and the making of modern urban america and a contributor to a 2014 National Research council study. The growth of incarceration in. The us exploring causes and consequences. He is currently cochairing a National Academy of sciences report on reducing racial inequalities in the criminal justice system. Carlo cohosts the pushkin podcast. Some of my best friends are and is the frequent reviewer and commentator in National Print and broadcast Media Outlets such as the Washington Post nation, National Public radio, pbs, msnbc and the New York Times, which includes his essay for the 1619 project on sugar. He has appeared in a number of feature length documentaries, including the recent release amend the fight for america. The oscar nominated 213 2016 and slavery by another name, 2012 kilo is an award teacher at harvard and has received numerous for his commitment to public engagement, such as ebony power 100 and the distinguished Service Medal from Columbia Universitys teachers college. He serves on several boards, including the Vera Institute of justice, to war, violence, global and the museum of modern art, bohlen, perkins, valdez, the New York Times bestselling author of wench bomb and the forthcoming man who will take my head when she was a finalist two. And the Naacp Image Awards and the Hurston Wright legacy award for fiction. In 2017, harpercollins it as one of eight out of titles limited edition modern classic that included by Edward P Jones lewis eldridge, Zora Neale Hurston. Dolan received d. C. Commission on the arts grant for her second novel, bomb which was published by harpercollins in 2015. In 2013, dolan wrote the introduction to a special edition of solomon moore, 12 years a slave, published by simon schuster, which became a New York Times best. Dolan is current chair. The board of Penn Faulkner foundation is associate in the Literature Department at American University in washington, dc. For our next section, ive asked our speakers to speak. 5 to 7 minutes on the following questions. As it relates to their past or forthcoming works. What Literary Works . Comic books or films and tv shows illustrated the complexity of, the black experience for you, where they are sparked . Which one and how so . How did your upbringing, your personal black experience shape your writing . And what monolith or falsehoods about black people in . The diaspora i plucked apart or negated within the pages of your work . The last 30 minutes of our conversation are reserved for audience questions. Please use the q a to ask questions as the speakers are speaking, the chat feature can be used to make comments and i will reserve 30 minutes for you for your questions to be answered. And if something resonates you or if you have an hallelujah indeed, feel free to drop them in the chat. Jelani, well start with you. How are you going to stage a lot of your first . I my good friend will muhammad there who i would eagerly off the initial duties to actually im just happy to see him i didnt know he was on the board of moma. Hoping you can get me like a complimentary membership or something. So im happy to be with you all, happy to be able to participate in this conversation. You know, as a panelist, particularly the fact that this conference was so integral to my development as a young writer, i attended this conference as a young person. It is where i made many of the formative relationships in my life, my career, notably. My first interaction with Stanley Crouch was at the conference. 1995 or 19 six. Youre not going to a huge heated argument as anyone who knew stanley would do automatically. And we continue to argue with an increasing degree of affection over the next two decades, more than two decades until his untimely passing. But i say that to say that this conference doing the crucial work of building the foundation that enabled that will enable our narrative and our contribution to the global thread of literature to continue and move forward. Now, to answer that question about me specifically, i think that theres a book there that terribly well known but had a tremendous impact on. And its a book by a writer, by the of Maurice Lemoine called bitter. And it was assigned to me my first year at howard and a class called black diaspora, which all students were required to take. And the book follows the experience chronicles is the experience of haitian cinema of. Haitian Migrant Workers in the Dominican Republic and not only does it tell the narrative, the individuals who are experiencing the bitter exploitation that happens in that context, but it connects this narrative to transnational corporations, the wealth and western industries that are based in north america and the exploitative grip that they have on labor throughout the diaspora, particularly in the caribbean and in reading that book, it made me cognizant of threads that were in front of me. My entire life. You know, i grew up queens, new york, which is, you know, statistically the most diverse county in the United States. My next door neighbor was a rasta jamaica. My neighbor upstairs, downstairs as were was a family from and the building next to them. The neighbors were, a family. Theyd come from haiti, you know, to the United States. And i remember them explaining to me the significance of the fall of the duvals duvalier regime in the 1980s. And so what that book did was give a context. For me to be able to understand relationship between sugar in haiti and the Dominican Republic and cotton in georgia in alabama, where my parents had grown up and it sparked this nascent sense that there was this global thread interconnected, that there was this thing diaspora and that i have my mind is never tired of to understand the ways which our lives are interconnected and the ways in which the dynamics that begin the moment they begin taking us off of those slave ships in, different ports of destination, and have made the incredibly complicated and crucial tapestry of relationships that we see between those two experiences of these myriad experiences to this day. Powerful you know, you talk about being a part of the National Black writers conference for all this time and i myself grew up here in this since i was a teenager and watched many a heated debate about numerous topics i was there for, how hakeem out of and cornel west going back and i remember that okay you were there for part too. I was 19 and i was blown away right. It was amazing. And you know, i, i also had the realization that the narrative that i had grown up with. I grew up between brooklyn and long island in hempstead. Long island, to be specific, which im sure youre familiar with, were making its way into the literature and i was blown away to the connections were happening between. What i learned growing up, the redlining and all of the differences, issues in the way in which they made it into work. And so id love to ask. Right, those narratives that you grew up with neighbors next door are the systemic things that were unraveled for you growing up. What works do . You feel like those are centered in the works . Youve what narratives which that youve grown up with are centered that informs everything ive done i think it shows that probably most prominently in the work that ive done at the new yorker, you know, in in talking about, you know, the ways in which you know, many of these communities overlap and many of these histories overlap. And so the history informs everything that ive done. And so i would probably say that, you know, theres like it just comes up in all of the things that i do, you know, particularly most commonly my journalism. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. Next up, we have marlon james. Oh, my god. Did i knew i was going to be next. Yeah. Youre youre on the hot seat now. Yeah. First of all, it was well, was alphabetical. Im for me, just the the existence of of black literature, black art. I actually black science, black research and that was complicated. I was born, what, eight years after jamaica was independent, but i still had pretty British Colonial and and i was still sort of trained in empire. So there so things like language, i was raised to think that part of, for example, it was broken meaning theres something im wanted it need to be fixed. Most of the books i read, i still love them. I love dickens, i love all of that. But thats what thats what i was raised literature for me was victorian literature, you know, the, the idea of i went to a school where were raised to be gentlemen but gentlemen, were a muddled on on royalty. Its as ways as way when a lot of the winner of speed became to england saw no blacks, no , no irish. I mean. Oh, so they dont mean me then then. So what i was saying is i was, you know, people one thing you always you will you will still hear people from the caribbean say those things like, yeah, in jamaica, not a race class. And of course would tell you that thats what colonialism taught us. Meanwhile it never occurred to me that the fact that the nightclub in kingston wont let me in for wearing a tshirt. But they let all the tourists in was a race thing. It just didnt occur to me. I was like, well, need to put on a certain extent. And so what im saying is the very existence of black american art complicated things, the very existence of of song of solomon, for example, or, you know, a jamaican black brother man, 1988 would have been public enemys it takes a nation of millions to hold us back and straight outta compton, which between the two of them made my head explore. And not just because got to say a lot of f words, but also because ive never interrogated the relationship between police and institutionalized power, considering i come from a cop family. It never. It never occurred to me that this idea of blackness, a social, cultural, political identity, where it where would i have gotten it from . So a lot of those works created this sort of awaken thing. For one in me and sometimes its its its something as as people dont talk about i that i thought about like a different. Its not its its seeing its is the evolution of seeing even shows that we may have low opinions like good times but the evolution from good times to different world to other shows which that man of ruined the talking about but the the idea that black was not a monolith is something that i wasnt raised to know so know you know. One of the things one of the things that direct things that are novel like say the color purple did was for me liberate my to a way it gets thats i was raised i mean what it is what i write to i and you know i remember when there was a saying that had stopped i had sent my second book of night woman to a british publisher shall remain nameless viking and they sent me back a letter saying, yes, this is good and its great and so on, but would you reconsider rewriting the whole thing in english. Because if you dont, britain and the rest of the world may not like it. Mandy the book became a hit in the uk, but that was the kind of thing i was still expecting. And its is interesting to me, even present criticism, british criticism of my work, just how unsophisticated it is because there is still this taken for granted that if you are writing literature surely youre reacting to a way it used. Thats what literature is about and it me a while and man, i dont know where id be with black american because is it one of the things that it did was then have me turn maggies back some jamaican art for example, until reggae came along, the idea of using jamaican patois to speak to power or or to talk about complicated issues, to talk about grief, to talk about the consequences of violence. Bob marley song that johnny was it wouldnt have occurred to. Thats not what thats what i write those wrote about even somebody like claude mckay who was crucial to the harlem renaissance couldnt get past a room and despising of english and couldnt get past our romanticism. A certain of english. It took me a while to realize every time i opened my mouth a song, they let the butler cadets the language we were taught. Its not just is. Its not just in the in the black and African Diaspora. Indian writers still are the same thing. Sri lankan writers tell you the same thing nigerian writers still the same thing. We had to completely throw away this english. We knew all along, and if it wasnt for at Toni Morrisons and alice walker and the James Baldwin and the these and cubes and the delta shoals and and the qtips, we wouldnt have known it. So for me that that is those the works for me that that illustrated the complexity of the black experience merely by showing me that there was complex that you know you know something the idea a soul album is so far removed from an n. W. A. Album, but it says something that was obsessed with both of them equally, because i, i just never that sort of complexity was something that was never taught to me and something that, you know, culture and africanamerican culture taught me. And it continues to, you know, that spills over in my work. I think theres a different question. Thank so much that is really powerful mean im learning i about Zora Neale Hurston in the way in which she had the same sort of pushback with using certain language within her work you know down to my Family Living room growing up where my mom dad and i often had those conversations of, you know, using patois and saying things, like ms. Johnson and realizing thats rooted in language that. You know, we were taught during enslavement and the way in which weve created it, like its ours now. But the roots of it, we we have to contend with.