Afro-Surrealism
term for defining a school of art and literature that evolved from Afro-futurism and surrealism, introduced by Amiri Baraka in 1974 and specified in D. Scot Miller's "Afro-Surrealist Manifesto" in 2009
Afro-Surrealism (also Afro-surrealism, AfroSurrealism) is a genre or school of art and literature. In 1974, Amiri Baraka used the term to describe the work of Henry Dumas. D. Scot Miller in 2009 wrote "The Afro-surreal Manifesto" in which he says: "Afro-Surrealism sees that all 'others' who create from their actual, lived experience are surrealist ...." The manifesto delineates Afro-Surrealism from Surrealism and Afro-Futurism. The manifesto lists ten tenets that Afro-Surrealism follows including how "Afro-Surrealists restore the cult of the past", and how "Afro-Surreal presupposes that beyond this visible world, there is an invisible world striving to manifest, and it is our job to uncover it".
Afro-Surrealism, is practiced and embodied in music, photography, film, the visual arts, poetry and fiction. Notable practitioners and inspirations of Afro-Surrealism include Ted Joans, Bob Kaufman, Krista Franklin, Aimé Césaire, Suzanne Césaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor, René Ménil, Kool Keith, Terence Nance, Will Alexander, Kara Walker, Samuel R. Delany, Donald Glover and Romare Bearden.
Influence
D. Scot Miller penned "The Afro-surreal Manifesto" for The San Francisco Bay Guardian in May, 2009. Until that time, the term "Afro-surreal Expressionism" was used solely by Amiri Baraka to describe the writings of Henry Dumas. Later that year, Miller spoke with Baraka about extending the term by shortening the description. It was agreed by the two of them that "Afro-surreal" without the "expressionism" would allow further exploration of the term.
The public source identifies “Afro-Surrealism” as term for defining a school of art and literature that evolved from Afro-futurism and surrealism, introduced by Amiri Baraka in 1974 and specified in D. Scot Miller's "Afro-Surrealist Manifesto" in 2009. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Afro-Surrealism, term and defining.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q25039455. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1974 and 2009.
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This entry incorporates text from “Afro-Surrealism” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.