The King is Dead: A Black Meditation on Grieving Chadwick Boseman
Chadwick Boseman’s death has me promising to children a future where Blackness will never leave the Earth.
The body of Chadwick Boseman — the avatar of a future where Black people could politically self-determine — was laid to earthly rest in South Carolina this week, a state in which nearly 60% of its population was enslaved on the eve of the Civil War. Our children mourned.
Deprived of the ability to meet with their friends, Black children had their action figures grieve the king. Parents posted photos of their kids holding funerals with their toys. Superhero dolls formed a circle around T’Challa. One can imagine this scene taking place at the end of Avengers: Endgame, honoring the fallen warrior-king who led the bulk of the Earth-based forces against Thanos. In a pandemic reality that has disrupted the communal nature of grieving for public figures together, our children found the most touching way to commemorate the loss of their hero.
I have always felt that the grief Black personhood expresses encompasses all aspects of time.
Boseman’s passing shows how our imagination regarding our historical reality can also cause our…
