Editor’s Take
BY NJEMILE Z. ALI
The Summer 2025 issue of KIZA BlackLit holds hopes, dreams, futures, present lives and principles. Our writers cultivate Black Mind: Real. Estate. by inviting us into their inner and outer landscapes, where they delve into …
Black ACE Happenings
The drums are calling us to the fireside for stories, verse and film from the Black Arts, Culture & Entertainment abundant storehouse. Commune with fellow lovers of the arts …
Land as Liberator
BY KHADIJA POUNSEL
Prior to preparing for this article, if someone had asked me about liberators, I probably would have begun with a roll of prominent and obscure figures, then extended the discussion to important legal rulings or movements. But when I considered the question in light of the …
On Land & Liberation: A Reading List
By KIZA Staff
The books in this collection explore Black land ownership and attitudes toward the land from the early days of homesteading to today’s new generation of urban growers and rural pioneers. Must-reads for understanding our journey through land connection, alienation and repatriation.
Liberation Is a Place: Writing Black Joy in Rooted Spaces
BY ERYKA PARKER
For Black communities, land has never just been land. It’s memory. It’s inheritance. It’s proof that we were here—and that we belong. From Southern farmland to city porches, the spaces we occupy bloom with stories …
Pirates on the Path to Land & Liberation
BY ZAKIYYAH ALI
The path to freedom is in unpaved territory, covered with rich, fertile, lush, black, red or sandy soils, filled with trees and more. Pirates, privateers, robbers, liars and thieves line the path. Many of them have titles such as …
Catching the Spirit of Sovereignty
“Land is not just a resource; it’s a trust.” Land and liberation are inseparable in the quest for sovereignty. Having a piece of our Earth that we can claim as stewards makes everything possible. You already know. We are of …
The MOVEment
BY CHRIS COURTNEY MARTIN
…Has been gentrified… / Philadelphia has been gentrified. / 6221 Osage sold at a premium. / The Search Engine will not …
Growing on the Land
Somewhere between grief and growth, I found myself. Between the pines and sweet gums of Alabama. In the yard, in a tent, at the bottom of a bottle of wine, my mind expanded. My heart imploded. My eyes …
Blaq Andi / A Meditation on the Re-Negrofication in the Mythos of a Tragically Compulsory Swxrl Gxrl
BY CHRIS COURTNEY MARTIN
PROLOGUE. Setting: Aethiopia / Not the land / of Amharic / Mind us all, but-- / The. Whole. Damn. / Shark’s Tooth / Sub-Saharan / Black. // Black as in / Black-as-Hell …
Black English/Ebonics: What It Be Like?
The month after the Oakland School Board passed its resolution[*], the term Ebonics turned twenty-four years old. Yeah, dass right, the name is over two decades old. It was coined by a group of Black scholars as a new way of talkin bout …
