From the pages of private notebooks to the dog-eared copies of rare published editions, the works of modern African poets are emerging with great fanfare thanks to a dedicated handful of writers and teachers building a network of libraries and websites on the Internet. The South African Badilisha Poetry X-change is one such group which recently posted its archive of poems and writings on a “mobile-first” site. 

the state of first and second generation narratives in the African diaspora is sorely lacking in comparison.  The dominant Black voice in mainstream cinema and television is overwhelmingly American.  It is no secret that nuanced portraits of Black immigrants and the experience of their offspring in mainstream media are few and far between. During the Reagan era, the sitcoms The Cosby Show and A Different World would occasionally feature characters from the Caribbean or South Africa, particularly during the country’s apartheid years.