Sweat Equity and the Endurance of Obsidian

E FIND ourselves in a time of pressing need similar to that which ignited the activist energies of the Black power and Black Arts movements and provoked the long-overdue demand for Black studies at U.S. universities. These same energies inspired the late poet Alvin Aubert to envision and found in 1975 and publish it with his own money and impelled poet Sonia Sanchez and other writers, artists, and scholars to strategize and agitate, to labor and to lead, to reach into their purses and pockets to champion and other Black arts publications as the necessary foundation for and companions to Black studies. As such, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, expanded in 2015 from a journal to a full publishing platform, is a manifestation of a collective vision to affirm and sustain Black people through literature, art, and scholarship composed by Black people, to Black people, for the edification of humankind.