The death of Chadwick Boseman last week revealed the ability of art to imagine new, daring possibilities for the future. In his roles as T’Challa, Jackie Robinson, and James Brown, Boseman expertly portrayed Black icons and heroes, providing visions of hope by embodying individuals who challenged power narratives. That is, in many ways, the core of Afrofuturism, a tradition represented in a long line of books written by Black writers such as Octavia Butler and Samuel Delany.

LATROBE, Pennsylvania—President Donald Trump has long signaled that if he loses reelection, it would surely be illegitimate. With his base primed to believe that victory is the only acceptable outcome, the post-election period could be the most combustible in memory.

In June, as Black Lives Matter protests were in full swing after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, a dictionary definition made headlines. The definition that drew so much attention was the one that Merriam-Webster gave for the word racism. The news was that the dictionary publisher was going to be revising its entry for the term after hearing from a young Black activist from Missouri, Kennedy Mitchum.

Each installment of The Friendship Files features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with two women who met as roommates during Army officer training. Emily, a queer woman, was wary of her roommate at first because of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. But they grew close and supported each other through their eventful military careers.

Yael MalkaWhen Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric arrived in the fall of 2014, shortly before a St. Louis County grand jury decided not to charge Darren Wilson for Michael Brown’s murder, critics hailed it as a work very much of its moment. The book-length poem—the only such work to be a best seller on the New York Times nonfiction list—was in tune with the Black Lives Matter movement, which was then gathering momentum.