Description
“Journey to Afrofuturism,” is the title to a poem wrirren by American prisoner artist, Donald “C-Note” Hooker. He wrote the poem for the 30th Celebration of African American Poets and Their Poetry at the West Oakland Public Library in 2020. One of the themes to the event was the 400 years of African Americans in California. Upon research, C-Note had discovered that Spanish conquistador, Hernán Cortés, and Governor of Mexico, named California after a Black woman, the Califia to the land of Black women. The poem brings back the Califia to our current times, as the nursemaid to the Afrofuturism movement. Afrofuturism, according to Jamie Broadnax of Black Girl Nerds, is the reimagining of a future filled with arts, science and technology seen through a black lens. The term was conceived a quarter-century ago by white author Mark Dery in his essay “Black to the Future,” which looks at speculative fiction within the African diaspora. C-Note, who is also a poet, playwright, and performing artist, wanted to tell his poem in paint.
