Black creativity has always been the heartbeat of social change. Our art resists oppression and reimagines new futures. Yet today, we see the same cycles of erasure return—with book bans rising, murals whitewashed, and public sculptures removed. Black artists and writers are once again being pushed to the margins of culture and power.

As a student-activist and former co-director of the Black Arts Collective at Harvard, I’ve witnessed this erosion firsthand. Serving on the National Racial Equity Initiative (NREI) Task Force for Social Justice has shown me how the civic space shrinks for Black leaders and creatives, especially under creeping authoritarianism.

Book bans and artistic censorship carry real civic consequences. They don’t just erase stories; they starve democracy. Diverse narra

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