Chadwick Boseman (1976–2020)
Don’t expect this to be entirely coherent.
I’ve written about Chadwick Boseman’s role in the “Black Panther” movie before. I wanted to look further back and how and why the role and the movie(s) meant what they did to me. I grew up in the late 1970s through the mid 1990s in Mattapan, a segregated neighborhood in Boston. I wasn’t the only kid entertained by superhero comic books or sci-fi and fantasy movies and television. But I was the only kid I knew willing to go down the rabbit hole with that stuff. Collecting comics, reading novels, the toys, etcetera. My mother, more than anyone, encouraged my consumption of these stories, she recognized how much fun they were and my interest in them. There were two crucial problems, however, with my interest deepening over the years. 1. Neither of my parents had any idea how to help me get involved in the creation of such things. 2. A distinct lack of representation in the stories I was consuming so fervently. It’s fairly obvious how one could have mitigated the other, but it wasn’t in the cards.
My mother, an artist, created all sorts of things from collages and sculptures to sketches and paintings. Nothing with needle and thread, however, so I was never Black Panther or Luke Cage on Halloween. Regardless, her subjects were invariably from a Black or feminist perspective. I won’t get into the details of why, but my mother abandoned a significant amount of her work as she got older. One of the earlier pieces that resonated most strongly with me was a series of five black and black and blue portraits of Black male soldiers and one Ugandan boy, arranged on wood and shellacked to seal the pieces. As I understand it, clockwise from top-left, the Black soldiers depicted are: a WWI cavalryman, a WWII Army soldier, a post-Civil War cavalryman (buffalo soldier), and a WWII pilot (likely one of the Tuskegee Airmen. In the center, a weary-looking Vietnam-era soldier. Hanging from the bottom like the result of decades of war, a Ugandan child-soldier salutes.
Many years later, shortly after I graduated from art school, I was inspired to paint a similar piece along with a two others in different mediums (charcoal, pencil and ink). They focused on Black women’s pain, so often the subject of reporting and so often ignored. The blue work is the only one I have kept.
A few years before my mother’s death in 2009, I rescued the piece before it could rot away in the basement. My mother was pretty good at putting the date on the back of her work, but she didn’t on this one, for some reason. I can scarcely remember ever not seeing it, but I’d put the creation of this one sometime in the late 70s, before her style of illustrative painting gave way to a more abstract manifestation. For me the piece is a timeless circle, a feedback loop of Black Americans perpetual involvement in U.S. conflicts to the African continent’s colonialist-led wars and their subsequent fallout. The piece also reminds me of all the Golden Legacy Illustrated History Magazines that I collected. A series of illustrated stories about Black history because, well, no one else was sharing the information, the nation just sort of ignored Black contributions to the country’s construction and maturation. Which brings us back to comics.
The Black Panther character debuted in Fantastic Four #52, 1966, by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. The character is often mistaken as the first Black (American descendants of chattel slavery) superhero when, to be clear, he’s Wakandan, from the fictional country on the African continent. (The Falcon, 1969, has the honor of being the first Black superhero.) By the time I was reading comics on my own, the Panther had already been in Marvel comics for several years. Between him and Luke Cage, they were the only comic-book representation of featured characters with black skin. Both of them had significant flaws in how they were drawn and written, but still…
How most people understand the character today—concepts expanded in the movie—was conceived by writer Christopher Priest and artist Mark Texeira in 1998. At last, T’Challa, the Black Panther was featured in a role that matched his background and Texeira modified the costume so that it was more than a black body sock. He is truly the King of Wakanda, not a costumed superhero seeking vigilante justice.
He leads a powerful, technologically advanced nation on the international stage. He deals with incessant economic, border, and political incursions. There’s diplomacy, espionage, war, and interactions with other Marvel monarchs such as Doctor Doom, Namor, and Black Bolt of the Inhumans. Other writers (Reginald Hudlin, Ta-Nehisi Coates) have further expanded on the refreshed mythology that Priest built. I loved the story arcs Priest produced and further enjoyed Hudlin’s run. The character, in my opinion, had finally come into his own as a significant player in the Marvel continuity. It only took thirty-two years.
“He portrayed with grace and mastery both the icons of our past and the superheroes who helped us imagine different futures. He gave us so much. And for that I am immensely grateful.”
Fast forward to 2016, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is in full swing, and the Black Panther was introduced in Captain America: Civil War. I could barely contain myself when I learned that the Panther was going to be introduced in that movie. I was aware of Chadwick Boseman’s work, up to that point. He’d played bit rolls in television shows and starred in a few movies. He was a great actor, but I didn’t know what to expect for him in the role of T’Challa. And when he did appear? I hollered. I lost my shit. I whooped. I almost passed out. T’Challa outclassed everyone in that introduction, showing what an extremely formidable and dangerous opponent he could be. And it was a gas, the perfect hype for the upcoming Black Panther movie. I couldn’t wait.
“Black Panther, the king of the fictional African nation of Wakanda, was the first African superhero in American comics, a milestone figure created in the 1960s. But Boseman’s performance in four Marvel movies vaulted the character to total global celebrity.”
In 2018, Black Panther hit movie theaters and proceeded to break records and defy the conventional wisdom that a film with a predominantly Black cast and crew—helmed (Ryan Coogler), written (Coogler and Joe Robert Cole) crafted (Ruth Carter), and curated the soundtrack (Kendrick Lamar)—couldn’t be successful. The movie was insanely successful, of course, and Black Panther entered the pop culture zeitgeist. The first time I watched that film, I was overwhelmed with emotions that I hadn’t realized had been bottled up and put away. Seeing all those black actors and knowing even more Black people had worked on the film behind the scenes it was a genre gift that was nearly too large to comprehend. Ultimately, what Boseman (and Wright, and Nyong’o, and Kaluuya, and Duke, and Bassett, and Whitaker, and Jordan, and Gurira, and so many more) did was embody something at such a high level, something that had been missing for Black people in America for so long. The amount of stories, photos, interviews, and eyewitness accounts of children wearing the costumes and meeting the actors were among the most heartening things I’ve ever seen. Even though it was eventually clear that Boseman was suffering some Wakanda fatigue from all the press, whenever he encountered a child enthusiastic about Black Panther, the room would light up. His ability to embody such a character so well and so inspirationally will be remembered forever for the indelible mark it left in our imaginations and hearts. I’ll never forget. It reminds me of the first time Barack Obama won the White House in 2008. During the celebrations that followed, my then five-year-old daughter caught sight of the Obama’s daughters and, knowing that the President Of The United States is the highest office in the nation, exclaimed, “She looks like me!”
“Many have wondered why Black Panther means so much to the black community and why schools, churches and organizations have come to the theaters with so much excitement. The answer is that the movie brings a moment of positivity to a group of people often not the centerpiece of Hollywood movies... [Racial and ethnic socialization] helps to strengthen identity and helps reduce the likelihood on internalizing negative stereotypes about one’s ethnic group.”
I think what has been so striking about Boseman’s death is the echos of everything mentioned above. With his struggle coming to light, we’ve seen a wave of tributes, of course, but also a celebration of the inspiration his role as Black Panther served to thousands of children. How he died, in particular, has also stirred up stories of medical bias for Black people in general and Black women in particular. Multigenerational stories of grandparents being lost to colon cancer because doctors ignored or dismissed their concerns are being reversed as younger generations are much more demanding with far more agency. Which dovetails nicely with the fact that Boseman portrayed so many influential Black characters on screen.
As a genre fan, I regret not being able to see Boseman in Black Panther 2, but I also know that Boseman (and T’Challa) will live forever in movies and comics. As a regular person with friends and family, all I can think is, “Fuck cancer.”
“Because he was a caretaker, a leader, and a man of faith, dignity and pride, he shielded his collaborators from his suffering. He lived a beautiful life. And he made great art. Day after day, year after year. That was who he was. He was an epic firework display. I will tell stories about being there for some of the brilliant sparks till the end of my days.”