Artists and thinkers invite us to immerse ourselves in the written and visual worlds they have built using multiple genres and kinds of media. When these visionaries enter into public conversations with each other, they provide fascinating insight into the thought processes that inform their work, and share tools with which we can engage with their art and their intellectual production in a meaningful way. Below, you will find links to conversations between literary icons, trailblazing visual artists, and radical thinkers. These individuals have in common a drive to imagine and to create around, in spite of, or with little regard for (white supremacist) gatekeepers’ continuous attempts to constrain and erase Black people’s creativity.
- “Revolutionary Hope: A Conversation Between James Baldwin and Audre Lorde.” Essence,1984.
- Angela Davis and Toni Morrison: Literacy, Libraries and Liberation. New York Public Library, 2010.
- BOMB Oral History Project: Kara Walker & Larry Walker. BOMB, 2014.
- Jennifer Makumbi in Conversation with Ellah Allfrey. Commonwealth Writers, 2014.
- Baring Our Truths, Narratives & Bodies with Janet Mock, Elixher & Guests, 2014.
- 2015 Susan & Michael J. Angelides Lecture: A Conversation with Filmmaker Ava DuVernay and Brittney Cooper
- Edwidge Danticat and Jacqueline Woodson at the Brooklyn Public Library, 2016.
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Zoë Gadegbeku is the Communications Manager for the Elma Lewis Center. She blogs at shewhowritesreality.com.