Alexis Aggrey

Becoming Thurgood: America’s Social Architect traces Marshall’s life and career from his birth in Baltimore in 1908, through his years at Historically Black Colleges and Universities Lincoln University and Howard University School of Law, and on to his groundbreaking career as a lawyer championing civil rights. After launching his legal career in Baltimore in 1935, Marshall went on to win 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court , most notably the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954, which ended racial segregation in public schools. In 1967 he was appointed to the Supreme Court, where he served until his retirement in 1991.

The term “Afrofuturism” was coined decades ago to describe an artistic and cultural tradition that pre-dates the transatlantic slave trade. From the poetry of Phillis Wheatley, to Martin R. Delany’s alt-history novel Blake, to Sun Ra’s avant-garde music to Marvel’s Black Panther (the special’s premiere coincides with the release of that blockbuster film’s sequel, Wakanda Forever), the African American experience has been explored and reimagined through a speculative, even cosmically scaled lens for centuries, in a variety of artistic mediums. The special seeks to explore the concept through conversation and performance, as some of today’s most influential Black musicians, writers, dancers and theorists come together to share their ideas and artistry as they celebrate the historical and cultural impact of Afrofuturism.