2025 | Power & Legacy Issues Set

The Unspoken Truth: Reimagining Power, Past, and Future is not just an exploration but an invitation. It calls us to reflect on how history informs our present, how we can redefine the meanings of power, and how we might collectively create a world rooted in justice, equity, and liberation. Through these pages' art, stories, and ideas, we hope to illuminate paths toward a future as bold, diverse, and resilient as the communities we celebrate. This powerful edition delves into how power is perceived, reclaimed, and redefined within Black and POC communities, offering a critical lens on historical struggles and contemporary movements. Through themes of resistance, resilience, cultural reclamation, and equity, this issue examines how past injustices shape current identities while envisioning a future rooted in justice and liberation.

Inheritance shapes us—culturally, historically, and familiarly—guiding the way we understand ourselves, relate to others, and navigate the world. It is both a foundation and a compass: a source of pride, resilience, and continuity, yet also a burden, carrying legacies of trauma, oppression, and outdated ideologies that can impede growth. This duality—of inheritance as both gift and weight—is at the heart of this issue. Inheritance: Deconstructing Our Shared Histories examines the complex interplay between past and present, inviting reflection on what we choose to carry forward, what we release, and how we actively reshape our shared legacies.Through the lens of art, storytelling, and critical inquiry, this issue engages with the ways personal and collective histories inform identity, culture, and social action. The works featured explore the power of legacy: inherited traditions, stories, and cultural practices that strengthen community bonds, cultivate resilience, and anchor identity. At the same time, they confront the weight of the past, acknowledging the ongoing impact of systemic oppression, generational trauma, and social inequities that continue to shape contemporary experience.Artists and thinkers in this issue navigate the space between preservation and transformation. They deconstruct inherited norms, challenge outdated structures, and experiment with new frameworks for expression and understanding. Many works reflect on inherited activism and resistance, tracing the transmission of justice-driven movements and the ways new generations reinterpret and extend them. Others interrogate the narratives we have inherited—whose voices are centered, whose histories are marginalized—and seek to rewrite or expand these stories through creative practice, research, and communal engagement.Ultimately, this issue considers inheritance as a site of negotiation and possibility. It asks difficult questions: How do we honor the roots that sustain us while forging paths toward new ways of thinking, being, and thriving? How do we carry forward the lessons, wisdom, and resilience embedded in our histories while rejecting what no longer serves us? Through the works collected here, inheritance emerges not as a static past, but as a dynamic force—one that demands reflection, engagement, and imagination.

We extend our deepest gratitude to everyone who made this issue possible. To our contributors—editors, designers, artists, interviewers, and advertisers—your dedication and creativity continue to shape the vision of BLACK COPPER. To our Board of Directors, thank you for your guidance and unwavering support. And to our ever-growing community of readers, artists, and supporters, your belief in our mission fuels our work. This publication exists because of you, and we are honored to share this journey with you.

 

With gratitude,

The BLACK COPPER Team