Why Wakanda Matters - Book Excerpt

Excerpt by Aynda Kanyama-Jackson; from "Why Wakanda Matters" Edited by Sheena C. Howard PHD; Published 2021

From a New Afrikan perspective this film had tremendous significance.  To be New Afrikan is to order one’s steps toward a vision of glory; a Camelot of Afrikan Royal greatness realized in a physical, tangible, political, and spiritual culmination of a collective Afrikan excellence.  Somehow Marvel Studios, if only for a moment, captured a sliver of this picturesque, consecrated, pinnacle hidden previously in the divining of our greatest oracles and the quiet whispers of our hopeful bedtime stories.  Black Panther proved to birth into a new generation a vision that for many was fading with the transition of visionaries past who’s legacies are often smeared by the dominant culture.  T'Challa represents not only the power of ancestral lineage; he echoes that sentiment of a “NEW” Afrikan reality by humbling himself and including the diaspora in his visions for the future of Afrikan greatness.  Elders, who have shed blood and sacrificed youth for this dream of Functional Unity and World Wide Afrikan empowerment, were reinvigorated by this movie. Many shed tears of joy and raised their fists in the Air, as they shouted “Black Power!”  Many stood to their feet as T’Challa shared with his sister, Shuri his vision for Oakland California, home of the Black Panther Party.