Calling Freedom into Being

The Black diaspora has a long tradition of viewing “Africa” as both a psychological and physical space. Younger generations in the late 20th century adopted this tradition and began imbuing it with literary imaginations, political self-determination, Black cultural aesthetics, and a transcendance of reality. The result of this melange birthed Afrofuturism. This paper examines Afrofuturism as a perceptive and rhetorical strategy that allows AfroDiasporic people to reassert their humanity and their reality in paradigms constructed by white supremacy. Through womanist literature reviews, anecdotal stories, and field interviews from Senegalese political figures, this paper takes Afrofuturism out of a strictly literary context and applies it as a useful disruptive rhetorical strategy.