When you think of Black Power, what comes to mind? What histories unfurl? What personal, lived experiences bubble to the surface of your memories? What kind of radical politics burn brightest in your souls? What critiques insist themselves into view so that you, thinking on it as you do, might improve upon those radical politics?

When you see the panther, read the slogan, raise the fist: What do you feel? What don’t you feel? What does this phrase mean under today’s circumstances—rampant climate change, continued capitalist conquest, avoidable but deliberately imposed genocides and famines, and preemptively voided political choices (I mean, really, between these two for President)—what can Black Power mean under these circumstances?

We ask because we believe there is, maybe, revolutionary potential lurking in our answers to these questions—that this phrase, has a kind of energy into which we can tap so that we might invigorate and catalyze the kinds of acts, small and grand, individual and collective, that will change the circumstances that frame our asking.

So, please: whether it is in the form of lyrics or poetry, creative nonfiction, short or long fiction, manifesto, essay, or some genre-bending/genre-combining work, please think creatively and/or critically on some pages and submit to this year’s Black Lives Matter Writing Contest.

The contest theme is Black Power Under Unimaginable Circumstances.

Submit your entry and download the official flyer here.