AFRICAN AMERICAN (B)

Ethiopia’s attorney general ordered the release of hundreds of prisoners on Thursday, state media reported, including journalist and blogger Eskinder Nega and opposition leader Andualem Arage whose jailings drew international condemnation.

The pair are the latest high-profile detainees to be freed since Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn announced last month that Ethiopia would allow an unspecified number of detained “politicians” to leave jail.

“The Federal Attorney General today pardoned a total of 746 suspects and prisoners, including Eskindr (sic) Naga and Andualem Arage,” state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate said.

“About 417 of the pardoned inmates are federal prisoners jailed on terrorism, inciting violence, religious extremism and other related convictions,” Fana added.

The prisoners will be released after undergoing “rehabilitation training” and receiving approval from Ethiopia’s president, the broadcaster reported.

Eskinder had been jailed for 18 years and Andualem for life after being accused of links to the banned Ginbot 7 group.

Their case has attracted international condemnation, with Ethiopia’s ally the United States saying it was “deeply disappointed” when the federal supreme court upheld the pair’s conviction in 2013.

The US along with rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have condemned Ethiopia’s use of its terrorism law to go after journalists and opposition figures.

In 2012, Eskinder was awarded the prestigious PEN America’s annual “Freedom to Write” prize.

Hailemariam billed the prisoner amnesty as a way “to improve the national consensus and widen the democratic platform” when he announced it last month.

The only previous high-profile detainee released since was Merera Gudina, chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress, who was awaiting trial related to anti-government protests that began in 2015.

The amnesty comes amid simmering discontent in Ethiopia with the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) government, in power since 1991. Together with its allies the party holds every seat in parliament.

Complaining that the government was planning to seize its land, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group the Oromos began protesting in late 2015, kicking off months of violence that would spread across the country and result in hundreds of deaths and tens of thousands of arrests.

The government declared a 10-month state of emergency in October 2016 that quelled the worst of the unrest but protests still occur occasionally with deadly consequences.

Last month, the United Nations rights chief condemned the death of at least seven people during a protest in the northern city of Woldiya.

Hundreds of protesters marched in Kenya’s capital Thursday to demand greater diversity in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s cabinet picks. Activists are calling on parliament to reject the existing list of nominees, urging Kenyatta to nominate more women, youth and members of marginalized groups.

The protesters carried signs that read “Recall the List” as they marched to the parliament building in Nairobi.

They are demanding that recently re-elected President Uhuru Kenyatta revise his list of cabinet nominees to make it more inclusive.

Only six of the 21 nominees on the current list are women. No youth representatives, defined as people between ages 18 and 35, are among the candidates. Activists say only one person with a disability has been nominated.

Sabeti Mboga, a disabled mother of three, joined the march.

“I am here to protest because the government does not recognize us. We also want to be involved in the processes of governance like anybody else,” Mboga said.

The protesters say Kenyatta is seeking to reward ruling party loyalists.

Mercy Jelimo, the leadership and governance officer at the Center for Rights Education and Awareness, laid out the protesters’ demands.

“Today we are going to parliament. This is our form of presentation of our memorandum to the committee on appointments, as they vet the cabinet nominees. We are there to express our dissatisfaction with the list,” Jelimo said.

Political climate remains tense

In early January, Kenyatta came under fire from gender activists for announcing a partial list of nominees that included no women. He released the full list on January 26. The president has not responded to criticism of his cabinet picks.

The issue is re-emerging amid a tense political climate.

Kenyatta’s government is drawing criticism for its arrest of three people who took part in the mock presidential inauguration of opposition leader Raila Odinga on January 30, and for its temporary shutdown of three TV stations that tried to cover the event.

The interior minister said the government acted to prevent violence. Rights groups say authorities are trampling the constitution and defying court orders.

Jimmy Eddy, a member of Team Courage, a local activist group, marched Thursday with other demonstrators.

“We have seen the media being under siege of late. We have seen arrests of various people, including deportation. How do you deport your child from your house?” asked Eddy.

Odinga rejects the results of the October presidential run-off election, which he boycotted, and has called for a fresh vote in August.

One of three opposition figures arrested over the swearing-in ceremony arrived in Canada Thursday after being deported, according to local media. Miguna Miguna is a leader of Odinga’s National Resistance Movement. In a statement, the Interior Ministry said Miguna’s Kenyan citizenship has been revoked.

South African President Jacob Zuma is likely to end his presidency the same way he started it: mired in corruption charges.

In 2009, just two weeks before Zuma led the African National Congress to victory at the polls, the National Prosecuting Authority dropped an eight-year-old corruption case against him. Politically, however, that case never went away: The opposition vowed not to let the matter drop, and has since used it to illustrate its lack of faith in the president through eight no-confidence votes in relation to his alleged corrupt acts before and during his presidency.

The ANC’s parliamentary majority has allowed him to survive each of those votes, but the latest one, in August, gave him a lean margin of 198 to 177.

Since Zuma was replaced as head of the ruling party in December, the ANC has turned against him, and a looming no-confidence vote scheduled for February 22 may succeed — if the ANC leadership doesn’t convince him to step down first.

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, who took over as party leader when Zuma’s term expired, this week met privately with Zuma after a series of high-level party meetings that did not produce Zuma’s resignation.

“This is a challenging time for our country,” Ramaphosa said in a statement this week, after the nation’s parliament took the surprising and unprecedented step of postponing the annual State of the Nation address, originally scheduled for Thursday. “Both President Zuma and myself are aware that our people want and deserve closure.”

His day in court

Whenever he does leave office, the outgoing president is unlikely to enjoy a quiet retirement.

In recent months, the charges that were dropped nine years ago have threatened to resurface. Last year, the nation’s Supreme Court upheld a High Court decision to reinstate the charges, which include 783 counts of corruption over a $2 billion arms deal in the late 1990s.

The national director of public prosecutions, Shaun Abrahams — long seen as a close Zuma ally — now has to decide whether to reinstate the charges. Separately, Zuma faces an investigation into his actions with a powerful Indian family that is accused of unduly influencing South Africa’s government.

And so, says analyst Daniel Silke, director of the Political Futures consultancy, Zuma’s future looks cloudy.

“The future for President Zuma is indeed going to be rocky,” he told VOA from Cape Town. “It’s highly unlikely that he’ll be able to strike any sort of deal which will prevent the legal process from attacking him. … This is going to be an expensive business for Jacob Zuma and, of course, the investigations going forward in the courts could potentially uncover even more wrongdoings, or alleged wrongdoings from the president.”

‘The sooner … the better’

But that, Zuma’s detractors say, is not the only reason to remove him. South Africa faces general elections in 2019, when Zuma’s second term is scheduled to end. In recent municipal and national elections, the ruling party has steadily lost ground as Zuma’s popularity has fallen.

In 2016 municipal polls, the party lost control of three major metropolitan areas. With just over a year before the national elections, ANC leaders are aware they need to act fast to keep voters backing the party that has, for so long, dominated national politics.

“We were saying to President Zuma on Sunday that we don’t want two centers of power; we want President Ramaphosa to take control not only of the ANC‚ but [also] the affairs of the state,” ANC treasurer general Paul Mashatile told investors earlier this week at an annual mining industry gathering in Cape Town.

“Our view as the leadership of the ANC is that the sooner the president of the republic steps down for the new leadership to take over‚ the better because then you have certainty of policy‚ of direction … there will be no confusion,” he said.

We all know and love the concept of a bed & breakfast—quaint, intimate surroundings and spontaneous connections made with innkeepers spent over coffee and blueberry muffins—and if you’re lucky, a little scrambled eggs and bacon, too.

But did you know that the concept of a “bed” for strangers in someone’s home, coupled with sending them off with a hot breakfast, is one deeply rooted in our country’s shameful past?

“During segregation we weren’t allowed to stay in any ol’ hotel,” explains Monique Greenwood, owner of Akwaaba Bed & Breakfast Inns. “It was a really dangerous and precarious situation that was humiliating at times.”

So out of no way, African Americans made a way. Necessity led to the invention of a concept that has grown worldwide and is experiencing a renaissance with African American hoteliers, as documented in the OWN reality series Checked Inn starring Greenwood’s family and staff.

Akwaaba Bed & Breakfast Inns in Bethany, PA on April 21, 2017.(Luiz C. Ribeiro/AP Images)

Greenwood shares more on how the B&B connects to Black history below:

Markette: You’re a journalist by trade—former editor-in-chief of Essence magazine. How did you get into the hospitality business?

Monique: I really fell in love with the hospitality space because I enjoy creating wonderful experiences that people would remember for a lifetime, so I started a collection of bed & breakfast inns.

I have four of them in the four cities where I love to be, one of them being Washington, DC—my hometown!

Markette: You say—the concept of the B&B is rooted in black history. How?

Monique: It’s really important to go back and look at the legacy the African American community has in creating the bed and breakfast experience.

During segregation we weren’t allowed to stay in any ol’ hotel. We couldn’t just roll up in there. So, we had to figure out where we could stay when we were on the road. It was a really dangerous and precarious situation that was humiliating at times.

Markette: There was something called The Negro Motorist Green Book, which was helpful at that time.

Monique: It was so important and special. It was started in 1936 by a gentleman named Victor Green and he really chronicled where people could go as Black motorists on the road—where you could eat, where you could get your gas, where you could stay for the night—and without that guide there could have been a lot of folks hiding in the bushes. There could have been lynches. It was very serious stuff.

Now, we are having the bed & breakfast experience all over again. There are more African American owners and more people are embracing the idea of staying [at B&Bs]. It’s a very intimate experience—much more so than staying at a hotel.

You need to know that you are going to feel welcomed. That there’s going to be a sense of community when you get there and that’s what makes our experience so special.

Markette: I like what you said about needing to feel welcomed and that’s the legacy you are continuing, so much so that Oprah Winfrey granted you a show on her network. That’s pretty awesome!

Monique: Yes, we have a show called Checked Inn and it really is a behind-the-scenes look at operating a family-owned bed and breakfast, but more importantly it’s about the exchange and communication and the connections that happen between us and the guests.

Markette: You recently acquired the Woolworth Mansion and you’ve said it’s the crown jewel of your properties.

Monique: Yes, yes! It’s located in the Poconos of Pennsylvania and what’s amazing about the Woolworth estate is that my own grandmother—the last thing she said to me before she died at the age of 101 was, “I couldn’t remember when I could sit at the counter at Woolworths and now my baby girl is all up in their mansion!”

Markette: And you’re not all up in there, you are owning that mansion!

Monique: I am.

Markette: We see on the reality show that owning this bed & breakfast empire is hard work and you want to continue that legacy because your grandfather was an entrepreneur right here in DC.

Monique: Absolutely. I’m a native Washingtonian and my grandfather started one of Washington, DC’s oldest black-owned businesses.

Back in the 70s it was listed on Black Enterprise’s list of Top 100 Businesses. It was a moving and storage company and he started it similarly to why bed and breakfast’s started.

The White grocer and manufacturer wouldn’t deliver his groceries, so he had to get a truck and pick them up for himself. Then he used that truck, when he wasn’t picking up groceries, to move furniture and that business became stronger and bigger and my aunt took it over and got government contracts.

Growing up in DC, I always saw these big trucks moving through the streets with my last name on the side: Greenwood’s. That’s an important, powerful and empowering legacy to have—and that’s what I hope to pass on to my daughter with Akwaaba Bed & Breakfast Inns.

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© 2018 WUSA

The owners of TeaLee’s Teahouse hope to create a spot in Five Points that pays homage to the neighborhood’s historic role as a cultural counterpoint for the city’s African-American community.

TeaLee’s is anticipated to hold its grand opening Saturday at 611 22nd St. The teahouse and bookstore will serve afternoon and high teas, offer literature with an emphasis on African-American involvement, sell gifts and provide meeting space for community members.

Denver native Rise Jones and her husband Louis Freeman are opening the shop named after a nickname of Jones’ grandmother. Jones and Freeman previously operated FreeMan’s Market in Park Hill and he co-founded The Hue-man Experience bookstore in Five Points.

“This has always been my community from Five Points all the way up to Park Hill,” Jones said Wednesday. “I wanted a business in the neighborhood where I was raised.”

Jones was previously diagnosed with a rare, life-threatening form of leukemia blood cancer around 2011. Near the end of the 61-year-old’s recovery period, her husband turned to her and asked: “What do you really want to do with your life?”

“Indirectly, I answered, ‘I want a teahouse.’ What I really meant … that is, what I clearly understood was my intention to create a black-owned (and managed) business so that we could trade with each other while spending our dollars multiple times with our neighbors,” Jones wrote on the company’s website.

TeaLee’s LLC was registered with the state and a lease was signed in 2015. Then the couple ran into unforeseen construction and development issues with their landlord and bureaucratic delays from the city. In July 2017, they launched a fundraising campaign on the GoFundMe platform. Over seven months the company raised $3,635 — 6 percent of the $60,000 goal.

Jones screamed with joy in November when she finally received the green light from the city to open. Freeman estimates more than $160,000 has been invested in TeaLee’s during the last two years.

TeaLee’s is planning to host events “in rhythm” with the cultural pulse of the Five Points. The lower level seating capacity can accommodate a total of 17 people and the upper level mezzanine can serve 13 people, according to the website.

“I see us filling a void in a community that so desperately needs this kind of institution,” Freeman said. “There’s no outlet for black information that’s authentic in this community.”

Want more Denver news? Subscribe to Denverite’s newsletter here bit.ly/DailyDenverite.

Business & data reporter Adrian D. Garcia can be reached via email at agarcia@denverite.com or twitter.com/adriandgarcia.

Author: Adrian D. Garcia

Adrian D. Garcia is on business and trends for Denverite, serves as treasurer for the Colorado chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and on the board of the Denver Press Club. He can be reached at agarcia@denverite.com.
View all posts by Adrian D. Garcia

Though D.C. lost its “Chocolate City” moniker several years ago, city leaders say they’re working to ensure African-American residents can not only live in the city, but prosper. On Feb. 24 at noon, Mayor Muriel Bowser and multiple city agencies, including the Mayor’s Office on African-American Affairs, are hosting an event focused on the advancement of Black D.C. residents.

The gathering at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center will delve into the city’s new resource guide called “A Fair Shot—A Toolkit for African American Prosperity.”

Mayor Bowser announced the toolkit on Feb. 1, as she kicked off Black History Month at the Howard Theatre. Paying homage to the nearby U Street corridor—the city’s former “Black Broadway”—both longtime business owners and beneficiaries of new D.C. programs gathered in the historic venue.

In 1970, D.C.’s Black population peaked at 71 percent, and the city remained predominantly Black for decades. In 2011, the District’s African-American population dropped below 50 percent. Rapid economic development has caused the faces of residents and facades of the corridors to change. Today, Black residents makeup 47.7 percent of the total population in the city. The average median income for Black households as of 2016 was $37,891.

“We as a government haven’t adapted as quickly as we need to, and many of our families haven’t adapted as quickly as would be necessary to survive in this changing economy,” Mayor Bowser said, noting the importance of the toolkit.

“We know there is more work to do to ensure African Americans in every corner of the District have a fair shot,” the mayor said. “With this toolkit, we are ensuring that the hardworking residents who benefit most from the many resources and programs we have available actually know about them. You have been here for D.C., and we are going to continue to be here for you.”

Part of the city’s revitalization has included investments under the Bowser administration. Since 2015, D.C. has invested more than $324 million in the Housing Production Trust Fund and $40 million in innovative workforce programs, according to the guide. From 2015 to 2017, the city has increased government spending in small businesses by $267 million. The city has also recently poured $40 million to help seniors age in place.

While resources abound, many residents don’t know how to access them. The guide gives an overview of vital government agencies and puts multiple resources in one place. Its target audiences are residents, senior citizens, families and business owners. Each section gives an overview of services available such as affordable housing programs, education and employment opportunities, healthcare benefits and financial and entrepreneurship workshops.

While it’s not an exhaustive list of resources, Bowser said it’s “a start to a great conversation” that the city’s Commission on African-American Affairs plans to continue with residents at meetings throughout the city.

“D.C. is a place that residents often mention feeling locked out of opportunities that support their drive and passion to the middle class, and we hear you,” said Rahman Branch, executive director of the Office on African American Affairs. “African Americans in D.C. have created a rich history that cannot be overlooked. Our community built much of the city, its culture, and its character.”

At the event on Feb. 24, residents can interact with representatives from more than 30 government agencies, meet local Black business owners and pick up a toolkit. “It’s not just a collection of programs, it’s a roadmap to be successful in the city, to prosper in our city,” said Courtney Snowden, deputy mayor for Greater Economic Development, at the launch event.

Brandon Henry, age 32, opened his own funeral home on December 22, Henry Funeral and Cremation Services, which made him (as far as he knows) the youngest funeral home owner in St. Louis, as well as the only African-American funeral director in South St. Louis. Although he is bringing something new to the industry, he is also standing on the shoulders of an enormous legacy – that of the Gebken-Benz Mortuary, whose building he took over.

Gebken-Benz Mortuary was founded in 1886 and the building Henry acquired from the Benz family has been standing since 1904, so Henry spent much of his first month there renovating – “Giving it a little TLC,” as he said. He excitedly pointed out some of the architectural features of the Meramec Street building – arched plaster ceilings, large wooden doors, and stained glass with little hourglasses on it. However, Henry has changed some features of the building, such as removing the dated carpet from the hallway and repainting some of the rooms.

“We’ve just made it a little bit more contemporary, if there is such a thing as making a funeral home contemporary,” Henry said.

Though Henry is young, he has a long history in the funeral services business, dating back to when he was 17 years old. As a high school student, he interned at Wade Funeral Home.

“I guess the passion for serving people just evolved from there,” he said. “So I just kind of went on services and just learned about how to treat people in services, and what went on at a funeral home.”

After high school, he became a St. Louis County police officer, and continued in that job for seven years. After Ferguson, however, he changed his mind about how he wanted to serve his community: through funeral services.

As Henry was on the hunt for a way back into the business, fate brought him to Larry and Kay Benz, the couple who had recently put the former Gebken-Benz funeral home on the market.

His wife’s family lives in South St. Louis, and leaving a family function he drove past the building. He was inspired to contact the family about the status of the property is – just days after they decided to sell the building.

“I got this message, and I don’t know who he is, I don’t know anything about him,” Kay Benz said, “Then he came in, and this relationship just clicked. We could sit with Brandon for hours and just yak yak yak – about the industry, and how it’s changed, and our families.”

When Kay, Henry and Larry Benz sit together, their conversation flies back and forth, referencing people in the neighborhood, different funeral home directors, and how their children are doing (Henry’s first child was born while he was in negotiations to buy the building).

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“We’ve had other people come in that were funeral directors, a couple of them, and it was just like, ‘No, we don’t really want this,’” Larry Benz said. With Henry, by contrast, he said, “We could tell what kind of funeral director he would be. Not a fly-by-night guy.”

Though the Benz family legacy in funeral services will not be carried on by their own sons (who now work in business and IT), they were able to find someone to carry the 131-year legacy of the Gebken-Benz funeral home into the 21st century. Henry plans to add some things to the funeral home to make it more amenable to millenials, such as Wi-Fi. “You go anywhere else, you just expect a business to have Wi-Fi,” Henry said. “And most other funeral homes don’t have Wi-Fi. They may not even know what Wi-Fi is.”

Henry and the Benzes have talked at length about changes in the funeral industry over the years. They agree that the amount of time spent on visitation tends to be shorter now, and that cremations are more popular. But, as Kay Benz puts it, “The traditional funeral’s always been going on, and still is.”

Henry is aware of his role as a supporter of families going through one of the hardest things to do: laying a loved one to rest. As such an important part of the community, he spent much of his first month on the job getting as involved with the neighborhood around him as possible.

“Historically, one of the first businesses that an African-American person could have was funeral services,” he said. “So, typically, people kind of knew who the local funeral director was in the St. Louis area. Funeral directors were kind of known as the pillars of the African-American community due to that fact, and being involved in the churches.”

Henry is trying to be that pillar of the community by meeting with all neighbors and knocking on doors. (He spoke with the principal of the school down the street the day after his interview with The American.)

“By me being the only African-American funeral director in South St. Louis, I think it’s very imperative that we be a business that is involved with education, and involved with other issues that may deal with the community in this neighborhood,” Henry said. 

That community involvement has already extended to his hiring people from the neighborhood.

“I had a lady across the street, she knew that we were new and she just wanted to know what she could do,” Henry said. “She was like, ‘I can clean, or something!’ So she came by yesterday and cleaned the funeral home, so we’re already hiring people in the neighborhood. She was a godsend.”

For Kay and Larry Benz, letting go of Larry’s great-grandfather’s funeral home has been emotional. Larry grew up around the funeral business, and then watched his own children grow up in and around Gebken-Benz funeral home. “They grew up playing funeral director,” he said. But they are enjoying not having to care for the property anymore.

“Just, like, the other day, it was calling for ice, and I was thinking, ‘Boy, I don’t have to run down and throw salt down,’” Larry laughed, and Henry interjected, “I mean, you still could if you want to! Don’t let me stop you.”

“I left you a couple bags of salt back there,” Benz said, to which Henry replied, “I know, and they came in handy!”

It’s not just maintenance tips being passed on from Benz to Henry – Henry says that many of the families who have come to Gebken-Benz funeral home for generations have called and said they still want to work with him.

Kay believed in Henry the second she met him. “We knew it, when he walked in the door. We kept thinking, this is gonna work. It’ll take a little while, but this is gonna work.”

Henry also sees this as a match made in heaven: “I walked in and, well, you can feel the love in this building.”

Henry Funeral and Cremation Services, located at 2842 Meramec St. in South St. Louis, is hosting an Open House 4-7 p.m. on Saturday, February 10. For more information, visit http://henrystl.com/ or call 314-752-9300.

The Revolutionary
Power of Black Panther

Marvel’s new movie marks a major milestone
By JAMIL SMITH

The first movie I remember seeing in a theater had a black hero. Lando Calrissian, played by Billy Dee Williams, didn’t have any superpowers, but he ran his own city. That movie, the 1980 Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back, introduced Calrissian as a complicated human being who still did the right thing. That’s one reason I grew up knowing I could be the same.

If you are reading this and you are white, seeing people who look like you in mass media probably isn’t something you think about often. Every day, the culture reflects not only you but nearly infinite versions of you—executives, poets, garbage collectors, soldiers, nurses and so on. The world shows you that your possibilities are boundless. Now, after a brief respite, you again have a President.

Those of us who are not white have considerably more trouble not only finding representation of ourselves in mass media and other arenas of public life, but also finding representation that indicates that our humanity is multi­faceted. Relating to characters onscreen is necessary not merely for us to feel seen and understood, but also for others who need to see and understand us. When it doesn’t happen, we are all the poorer for it.

This is one of the many reasons Black Panther is significant. What seems like just another entry in an endless parade of super­hero movies is actually something much bigger. It hasn’t even hit theaters yet and its cultural footprint is already enormous. It’s a movie about what it means to be black in both America and Africa—and, more broadly, in the world. Rather than dodge complicated themes about race and identity, the film grapples head-on with the issues affecting modern-day black life. It is also incredibly entertaining, filled with timely comedy, sharply choreographed action and gorgeously lit people of all colors. “You have superhero films that are gritty dramas or action comedies,” director Ryan Coogler tells TIME. But this movie, he says, tackles another important genre: “Superhero films that deal with issues of being of African descent.”

Black Panther is the 18th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a franchise that has made $13.5 billion at the global box office over the past 10 years. (Marvel is owned by Disney.) It may be the first mega­budget movie—not just about superheroes, but about anyone—to have an African-American director and a predominantly black cast. Hollywood has never produced a blockbuster this splendidly black.

The movie, out Feb. 16, comes as the entertain­ment industry is wrestling with its toxic treatment of women and persons of color. This rapidly expanding reckoning—one that reflects the importance of representation in our culture—is long overdue. Black Panther is poised to prove to Hollywood that African-American narratives have the power to generate profits from all audiences. And, more important, that making movies about black lives is part of showing that they matter.

The invitation to the Black Panther premiere read “Royal attire requested.” Yet no one showed up to the Dolby Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard on Jan. 29 looking like an extra from a British costume drama. On display instead were crowns of a different sort—ascending head wraps made of various African fabrics. Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o wore her natural hair tightly wrapped above a resplendent bejeweled purple gown. Men, including star Chadwick Boseman and Coogler, wore Afrocentric patterns and clothing, dashikis and boubous. Co-star Daniel Kaluuya, an Oscar nominee for his star turn in Get Out, arrived wearing a kanzu, the formal tunic of his Ugandan ancestry.

After the Obama era, perhaps none of this should feel groundbreaking. But it does. In the midst of a regressive cultural and political moment fueled in part by the white-nativist movement, the very existence of Black Panther feels like resistance. Its themes challenge institutional bias, its characters take unsubtle digs at oppressors, and its narrative includes prismatic perspectives on black life and tradition. The fact that Black Panther is excellent only helps.

Back when the film was announced, in 2014, nobody knew that it would be released into the fraught climate of President Trump’s America—where a thriving black future seems more difficult to see. Trump’s reaction to the Charlottesville chaos last summer equated those protesting racism with violent neo-Nazis defending a statue honoring a Confederate general. Immigrants from Mexico, Central America and predominantly Muslim countries are some of the President’s most frequent scapegoats. So what does it mean to see this film, a vision of unmitigated black excellence, in a moment when the Commander in Chief reportedly, in a recent meeting, dismissed the 54 nations of Africa as “sh-thole countries”?

As is typical of the climate we’re in, Black Panther is already running into its share of trolls—including a Facebook group that sought, unsuccessfully, to flood the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes with negative ratings of the film. That Black Panther signifies a threat to some is unsurprising. A fictional African King with the technological war power to destroy you—or, worse, the wealth to buy your land—may not please someone who just wants to consume the latest Marvel chapter without deeper political consideration. Black Panther is emblematic of the most productive responses to bigotry: rather than going for hearts and minds of racists, it celebrates what those who choose to prohibit equal representation and rights are ignoring, willfully or not. They are missing out on the full possibility of the world and the very America they seek to make “great.” They cannot stop this representation of it. When considering the folks who preemptively hate Black Panther and seek to stop it from influencing American culture, I echo the response that the movie’s hero T’Challa is known to give when warned of those who seek to invade his home country: Let them try.

The history of black power and the movement that bore its name can be traced back to the summer of 1966. The activist Stokely Carmichael was searching for something more than mere liberty. To him, integration in a white-dominated America meant assimilation by default. About one year after the assassination of Malcolm X and the Watts riots in Los Angeles, Carmichael took over the Student Non­violent Coordinating Committee from John Lewis. Carmichael decided to move the organization away from a philosophy of pacifism and escalate the group’s militancy to emphasize armed self-defense, black business ownership and community control.

In June of that year, James Meredith, an activist who four years earlier had become the first black person admitted to Ole Miss, started the March Against Fear, a long walk of protest from Memphis to Mississippi, alone. On the second day of the march, he was wounded by a gunman. Carmichael and tens of thousands of others continued in Meredith’s absence. Carmichael, who was arrested halfway through the march, was incensed upon his release. “The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin’ us is to take over,” he declared before a passionate crowd on June 16. “We been saying freedom for six years and we ain’t got nothin’. What we gonna start sayin’ now is Black Power!”

Black Panther was born in the civil rights era, and he reflected the politics of that time. The month after Carmichael’s Black Power declaration, the character debuted in Marvel Comics’ Fantastic Four No. 52. Supernatural strength and agility were his main features, but a genius intellect was his best attribute. “Black Panther” wasn’t an alter ego; it was the formal title for T’Challa, King of Wakanda, a fictional African nation that, thanks to its exclusive hold on the sound-absorbent metal vibranium, had become the most technologically advanced nation in the world.

It was a vision of black grandeur and, indeed, power in a trying time, when more than 41% of ­African Americans were at or below the poverty line and comprised nearly a third of the nation’s poor. Much like the iconic Lieutenant Uhura character, played by Nichelle Nichols, that debuted in Star Trek in September 1966, Black Panther was an expression of Afrofuturism—an ethos that fuses African mythologies, technology and science fiction and serves to rebuke conventional depictions of (or, worse, efforts to bring about) a future bereft of black people. His white creators, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, did not consciously conjure a fantasy-world response to Carmichael’s call, but the image still held power. T’Challa was not only strong and educated; he was also royalty. He didn’t have to take over. He was already in charge.

“You might say that this African nation is fantasy,” says Boseman, who portrays T’Challa in the movie. “But to have the opportunity to pull from real ideas, real places and real African concepts, and put it inside of this idea of Wakanda—that’s a great opportunity to develop a sense of what that identity is, especially when you’re disconnected from it.”

The character emerged at a time when the civil rights movement rightfully began to increase its demands of an America that had promised so much and delivered so little to its black population. Fifty-two years after the introduction of T’Challa, those demands have yet to be fully answered. According to the Federal Reserve, the typical African-American family had a median net worth of $17,600 in 2016. In contrast, white households had a median net worth of $171,000. The revolutionary thing about Black Panther is that it envisions a world not devoid of racism but one in which black people have the wealth, technology and military might to level the playing field—a scenario applicable not only to the predominantly white landscape of Hollywood but, more important, to the world at large.

The Black Panther Party, the revolutionary organization founded in Oakland, Calif., a few months after T’Challa’s debut, was depicted in the media as a threatening and radical group with goals that differed dramatically from the more pacifist vision of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Lewis. Marvel even briefly changed the character’s name to Black Leopard because of the inevitable association with the Panthers, but soon reverted. For some viewers, “Black Panther” may have undeservedly sinister connotations, but the 2018 film reclaims the symbol to be celebrated by all as an avatar for change.

The urgency for change is partly what Carmichael was trying to express in the summer of ’66, and the powers that be needed to listen. It’s still true in 2018.

Moviegoers first encountered Boseman’s T’Challa in Marvel’s 2016 ensemble hit Captain America: Civil War, and he instantly cut a striking figure in his sleek vibranium suit. As Black Panther opens, with T’Challa grieving the death of his father and coming to grips with his sudden ascension to the Wakandan throne, it’s clear that our hero’s royal upbringing has kept him sheltered from the realities of how systemic racism has touched just about every black life across the globe.

The comic, especially in its most recent incarnations as rendered by the writers Ta-Nehisi Coates and Roxane Gay, has worked to expunge Euro­centric misconceptions of Africa—and the film’s imagery and thematic material follow suit. “People often ask, ‘What is Black Panther? What is his power?’ And they have a misconception that he only has power through his suit,” says Boseman. “The character is existing with power inside power.”

Coogler says that Black Panther, like his previous films—including the police-brutality drama Fruitvale Station and his innovative Rocky sequel Creed—explores issues of identity. “That’s something I’ve always struggled with as a person,” says the director. “Like the first time that I found out I was black.” He’s talking less about an epidermal self-awareness than about learning how white society views his black skin. “Not just identity, but names. ‘Who are you?’ is a question that comes up a lot in this film. T’Challa knows exactly who he is. The antagonist in this film has many names.”

That villain comes in the form of Erik “Killmonger” Stevens, a former black-ops soldier with Wakandan ties who seeks to both outwit and beat down T’Challa for the crown. As played by a scene-­stealing Michael B. Jordan, Killmonger’s motivations illuminate thorny questions about how black people worldwide should best use their power.

In the movie, Killmonger is, like Coogler, a native of Oakland. By exploring the disparate experiences of Africans and African Americans, Coogler shines a bright light on the psychic scars of slavery’s legacy and how black Americans endure the real-life consequences of it in the present day. Killmonger’s perspective is rendered in full; his rage over how he and other black people across the world have been disenfranchised and disempowered is justifiable.

Coogler, who co-wrote the screenplay with Joe Robert Cole, also includes another important antagonist from the comics: the dastardly and bigoted Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis). “What I love about this experience is that it could have been the idea of black exploitation: he’s gonna fight Klaue, he’s gonna go after the white man and that’s it—that’s the enemy,” Boseman says. He recognizes that some fans will take issue with a black male villain fighting black protagonists. Killmonger fights not only T’Challa, but also warrior women like the spy Nakia (Nyong’o), Okoye (Danai Gurira) and the rest of the Dora Milaje, T’Challa’s all-female royal guards. Killmonger and Shuri (Letitia Wright), T’Challa’s quippy tech-genius sister, also face off.

T’Challa and Killmonger are mirror images, separated only by the accident of where they were born. “What they don’t realize,” Boseman says, “is that the greatest conflict you will ever face will be the conflict with yourself.”

Both T’Challa and Killmonger had to be compelling in order for the movie to succeed. “Obviously, the superhero is who puts you in the seat,” Coogler says.

“That’s who you want to see come out on top. But I’ll be damned if the villains ain’t cool too. They have to be able to stand up to the hero, and have you saying, ‘Man, I don’t know if the hero’s going to make it out of this.’”

“If you don’t have that,” Boseman says, “you don’t have a movie.”

This is not just a movie about a black superhero; it’s very much a black movie. It carries a weight that neither Thor nor Captain America could lift: serving a black audience that has long gone under­represented. For so long, films that depict a reality where whiteness isn’t the default have been ghettoized, marketed largely to audiences of color as niche entertainment, instead of as part of the mainstream. Think of Tyler Perry’s Madea movies, Malcolm D. Lee’s surprise 1999 hit The Best Man or the Barbershop franchise that launched in 2002. But over the past year, the success of films including Get Out and Girls Trip have done even bigger business at the box office, led to commercial acclaim and minted new stars like Kaluuya and Tiffany Haddish. Those two hits have only bolstered an argument that has persisted since well before Spike Lee made his debut: black films with black themes and black stars can and should be marketed like any other. No one talks about Woody Allen and Wes Anderson movies as “white movies” to be marketed only to that audience.

Black Panther marks the biggest move yet in this wave: it’s both a black film and the newest entrant in the most bankable movie franchise in history. For a wary and risk-averse film business, led largely by white film executives who have been historically predisposed to greenlight projects featuring characters who look like them, Black Panther will offer proof that a depiction of a reality of something other than whiteness can make a ton of money.

The film’s positive reception—as of Feb. 6, the day initial reviews surfaced, it had a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes—bodes well for its commercial prospects. Variety predicted that it could threaten the Presidents’ Day weekend record of $152 million, set in 2016 by Deadpool.

Some of the film’s early success can be credited to Nate Moore, an African­-American executive producer in Marvel’s film division who has been vocal about the importance of including black characters in the Marvel universe. But beyond Wakanda, the questions of power and responsibility, it seems, are not only applicable to the characters in Black Panther. Once this film blows the doors off, as expected, Hollywood must do more to reckon with that issue than merely greenlight more black stories. It also needs more Nate Moores.

“I know people [in the entertainment industry] are going to see this and aspire to it,” Boseman says. “But this is also having people inside spaces—gatekeeper positions, people who can open doors and take that idea. How can this be done? How can we be represented in a way that is aspirational?”

Because Black Panther marks such an unprecedented moment that excitement for the film feels almost kinetic. Black Panther parties are being organized, pre- and post-film soirées for fans new and old. A video of young Atlanta students dancing in their classroom once they learned they were going to see the film together went viral in early February. Oscar winner Octavia Spencer announced on her Insta­gram account that she’ll be in Mississippi when Black Panther opens and that she plans to buy out a theater “in an underserved community there to ensure that all our brown children can see themselves as a superhero.”

Many civil rights pioneers and other trailblazing forebears have received lavish cinematic treatments, in films including Malcolm X, Selma and Hidden Figures. Jackie Robinson even portrayed himself onscreen. Fictional celluloid champions have included Virgil Tibbs, John Shaft and Foxy Brown. Lando, too. But Black Panther matters more, because he is our best chance for people of every color to see a black hero. That is its own kind of power.