Imagining our Future, Today

By DAMASO REYES AND ALICIA BELL JUNETEENTH 2023

If there was a display of beautiful art on any street corner and the art was free, most people would take a piece of art and place it somewhere in their lives.

If there were a pop-up bookstand full of inspiring, visionary, informative books in front of any local grocery store, the books would likely be gone by the end of the day, and people would be reading or planning to read them.

If one day, in mailboxes everywhere, there was a verified step-by-step blueprint for ways that anyone, across race, gender, etc., could change their living conditions and tap into community resources, many more people would be taking action to make that change.

Journalism can be all of that.

But today, most of it’s not.

So for now, we’ll refer to the kind of journalism that takes you from the past to the future with facts, insights, and possible visions from the future as speculative journalism.

Speculative journalism is a derivative of speculative fiction, a writing genre that teeters on the lines of fantasy, dystopia, utopia, and science fiction by combining history, folklore, contemporary social issues, and visions of a distant future.

Some of the most masterful speculative fiction authors and artists include Octavia Butler, N.K. Jemisin, W.E.B. DuBois, and Sun Ra. Speculative journalism exists as kinfolk in their lineage and our colleagues at Media 2070 and Media Justice have been playing in public with speculative journalism ever since they first co-hosted Black Narrative Power Month, inviting folks to share #BlackFutureHeadlines

In order to create a new, more just world, we must first be able to imagine that world. This project goes back and forth in time using pieces of speculative journalism by our contributors which link to pieces of journalism from the archives of the New York Amsterdam News. We felt it was important to remind ourselves and our community of our rich history as we continue the long tradition of creating bold new worlds where we are treated justly.

This collection of speculative fiction is free from the chains of traditional journalism and allows us to visit a world, nearly 50 years in the future, where collective ownership and action help to ensure that everyone is treated humanely. But this world, just like our current one, and the one of our ancestors documented by the articles from our archives, still struggle with the legacies of slavery and oppression.

Throughout this edition of the Amsterdam News, you’ll experience various iterations of speculative journalism. Our hope is that the time you spend here grounds you in the thick and juicy richness of our history while it pulls you further into vision, hope, possibility, and the action necessary to build the kind of community power we need.

This special insert of the Amsterdam News is published in partnership with The Black Future Newsstand, a collaboration between The Black Thought Project and Media 2070. Learn more at blackfuturenewsstand.com and visit amsterdamnews.com

“I Am From My Mother” - Local Neighbor Tisha Yeye Wins Global Essay Contest

By COLLETTE WATSON ORUN-RERE DISTRICT JUNETEENTH 2070

“ ‘Where are you from?’ they asked. I’m from the Nile River Delta. And the Mississippi River Delta. And all the Black Rivers. I’m from my mama. I’m from the future. And I am from time immemorial. My ancestors originated in the place we call Afrika, along with every other being on Earth. As time and necessity had it, we moved, again and again. Across land bridges that are no more. Across manmade bridges that are no more. Migrating. Like honey bees and butterflies on silken wings.”

“No one asks where you’re from now. We only ask, ‘Where are you going?’ Because we are all trusted in the understanding that we’re going to where we need to be.”

This is an excerpt from the grand prize winning essay, “I Am From My Mother,” written by 50-year-old Atabey LaTisha Yeye, born in the year 2020 and now an elder in the Old USA, affectionately known to her communal area as Tisha. She remembers a time before the Reorganization when people commonly greeted each other with the query, “Where are you from?”

“The Reorganization seems like a distant memory now, but there was a time when it completely transformed life here on Earth. There were too many guns and people were using them to keep each other behind invisible lines called ‘borders’ [pronounced BORE-durrs]. Then climate change brought such a rise in sea-levSee MY MOTHER on page 6

Shoemaking Tools

By ALYSSA BARDGE JUNETEENTH 2070

Sweetness dwells underneath my palms

Gentle and easeful when needed

By touch and nature,

Reaching out, caressing like the lavender swaying in the fields

God makin’ herself known in the colors we rarely see

Like the chosen kinship between Shug and Celie

Between fire and water

Red and blue

Green and yellow

Black and brown

Mixing into something deeper than underground

And higher than Jupiter, Mercury, and infinity.

Broken down and ground, Anchored at the souls of my feet. This is a discovered invitation

Found by concealing my face, the longing in my eyes

And turning my back with my arms outstretched

Wandering and wondering about the abstractions, Constructions, inherent instructions

Of living life with this particular classification of soil-toned skin, Asking the stars:

What kind of flowers did Granny lay with when she realized she was the Earth?

What kind of trees does she grow?

Does she know she feels just like the Autumn wind?

What is this quiet strength that dwells behind my tongue?

I know that I am made up of many things, Known and unknown

Not among most but somehow in the midst, in the air, in the footsteps and fingerprints

Stained of red clay

Scented with tobacco leaves

Ivory tusks transformed into black wrists

Gripping extension cords mimicking cracked whips Decorated with Pandora charm bracelets and mauve-painted fingertips.

I am made up of many things like engrained pathological responses to harshness

Like crying out in the silence of the dark Or cringing at the taste of salt water dripping from my own face. Things that are familiar like mundanity and false realities, Lies and corruptions

Hypocrisies that almost act as if it is a tragedy to my identity, Subconsciously rejecting the notion that

I am the sole reason for my circumstances and man-made poverty,

That I would be better off stretching my arms out to the slave master’s tools

I am in search of something that is beyond our definition of abstraction.

I want handwritten recipes and holistic materials and remedies

Because all I know is that burgundy wine and dark skin men with the nappiest of roots soothe me.

Tobacco leaves filled with peoplepleasing tendencies and trauma responses get burned

Taken up to the head and blown out into the wind, Cradled by yellow hands carrying me back home.

I am in search of Granny’s shoemaking tools.