Black Futures
Dreaming is a sort of infrastructure-building, as vital for the exploration and cultivation of new lands as roads, bridges, and airports. In our Black Futures work, we explore the role of the imagination in transcending the current paradigms and expectations in which we, as citizens, as humans, find ourselves trapped. Inspired by our No End in Sight research, which suggests that Black income in Atlanta lags and could lag behind the income of other groups for two centuries with virtually no change, we asked ourselves, “What must change, to ensure the future of Blacks in Atlanta is radically different from the past?” Numerous generations of activists, scholars, and everyday people within and beyond Atlanta have been asking themselves this very question, and our answers are no different, and no better than what has come before.
For this reason, we decided to unite our passion and work in tapping the power of the imagination as the precursor to radical change, with the insights of luminaries in this space. We call on all Atlantans to vigorously, urgently and joyously imagine, in loving detail, a future in which Black Atlantans thrive, and no one is left behind. And then ask themselves, What can we do now to bring what we imagine to fruition?
If you'd like us to facilitate an imagination-focused session for you, contact us at info@ignitedword.com.
Some of Our Inspiration
“Our theories are the first draft of reality. And the stories we tell (about) ourselves lay the groundwork for the kind of world we then create to sustain the people we are imagined to be.”
—Ruha Benjamin, Imagination: A Manifesto
“...the map to a new world is in the imagination.”
— Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination