Black dreams matter: Exploring the polyphonic realms of the Black Radical Imaginary

Charles Cobb Jr. and Alex Davis are two Black American men who have never experienced the full capacity of freedom. The routine denial of their full humanity, or social equity, has counterintuitively sparked an impetus inside of them both to commit their lives to seek to dismantle oppressive systems.

Through a series of oral histories with both organizers, I learned that they have been engaged with radical dreaming and imagination as a survivalist movement strategy.

Despite the dehumanizing violence of slavery, the political humiliation of Reconstruction, the brutal segregation and state terrorism of Jim Crow, and the many Civil Rights successes and Neoliberal disappointments that have followed, Cobb and Davis have embodied a steadfast commitment to freedom, unwavering trust in their people, in some contexts, a just daring that defies current dominant reason.

I argue that by drawing through lines between the meaning-making experiences of Charles Cobb Jr. 's and Alex Davis' incredible lives we can better understand their critical consciousness and sociopolitical development have influenced their dreams of freedom, cultivated their radical imaginations, and sustained their collectivism.