University professors uncover new sci fi story by W.E.B. Du Bois

If you’re an avid reader of science fiction by big name authors like Ben Bova, Robert Heinlein, and Ursula Le Guin, you may have heard that the earliest African-American writer in the genre is Samuel Delaney. He was an early one who has definitely made a big contribution to the genre. However, there was one who predated him by several decades. Because he was more known for his non-fiction on race issues of his time, most people would not think W.E.B. Du Bois wrote science fiction among other fiction genres. Scholars have already known about W.E.B. Du Bois’ science fiction that often served as social criticism especially in light of technology. One of these stories is “The Comet”. But two university professors opened a Du Bois scholar’s version of a “Christmas gift” earlier this year but news media started reporting on it only since the beginning of the month. The “gift”: a short story by Du Bois entitled “The Princess Steel” that may be his earliest science fiction work to date.

Britt Rusert, professor of African-American literature at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Adrienne Brown who is a University of Chicago professor discovered Du Bois’ “The Princess Steel” in an archives box packed with short fiction of various genres, including science fiction, states a Slate.com article. According to “io9”’s Charlie Jane Anders, the story was originally titled “The Megascope: A Tale of Tales”. Rusert and Brown “have dated [it] to 1908 and 1910—much earlier than any of Du Bois’ other speculative fiction,” explains Slate.com.

According to Slate, the story involves a black sociologist who looks into the past with a device called a “megascope”. Through the megascope, he sees a mythic society where an African princess, called the Princess Steel, is imprisoned by an imperial character known as “The Lord of the Golden Way”. He steals the princess’s silver hair that he discovers to be made of steel and uses it to establish a global-wide mill industry. Slate says the story is an important link in Afrofuturism, a social criticism movement against racism and poverty that often uses science fiction by black storytellers as a tool to teach about these issues.

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Corrections officers indicted in death of Nimala Henry

This case may not be as well known as Sandra Bland's but it's just as tragic. Nimala Henry was also found dead in her cell in after being unable to make bail. George Cook AfricanAmericanReports.com

A federal grand jury indicted four Louisiana corrections officers Thursday, charging them with violating the civil rights of inmate Nimali Henry, who died in prison last year after her medical needs were allegedly ignored. The indictment says the officers from St. Bernard Parish Prison in Chalmette, Louisiana, knew Henry, 19, had serious medical conditions but failed to provide her with necessary help, resulting in her death.

Capt. Andre Dominick, Cpl. Timothy Williams, Deputy Debra Becnel and Deputy Lisa Vaccarella are each charged with violating civil rights and making false statements to the FBI. The maximum penalties are life in prison for the civil rights charge and five years in prison for each false statement.

Henry was arrested in March 2014 on minor charges and held in jail after her family could not pay her $25,000 bond. She was arrested for disturbing the peace, simple battery and unauthorized entry after a domestic dispute. Henry, who was mother to a then-4-month-old daughter, was found lying facedown and unresponsive in her cell 10 days after her arrest, after suffering a blood clot leading to her death.

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Creed’s’ Ryan Coogler in Talks to Direct ‘Black Panther’

“Creed” helmer Ryan Coogler is in talks to direct Marvel’s “Black Panther,” sources confirm for Variety.

Kevin Feige is producing the film which stars Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa, the prince of the African nation of Wakanda, who must take over the mantel after his father’s murder.

Joe Robert Cole is penning the script.

This marks the second time the studio has approached Coogler about directing the film and at the time he didn’t feel it was the right fit for him and returned to finish post-production on “Creed.” With “Creed” now behind him, Coogler had a change of heart and took the studio up on the offer of directing the film.

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Police Tear Down Minneapolis Black Lives Matter Protest Camp

Minneapolis police began removing Black Lives Matter protesters from the 4th Precinct around 4 a.m. Thursday morning, using bulldozers and buckets of water to break up the demonstrators that had been camped out there since the shooting death of Jamar Clark on Nov. 15.

NAACP sues Alabama over state's voter identification law

A civil rights group in Alabama targeted the state's voter identification law in a federal lawsuit filed on Wednesday, saying the requirement that a photo ID be shown at the polls in order to vote discriminated against minorities.

The lawsuit, filed by the Alabama State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Greater Birmingham Ministries, asked for a permanent injunction to stop the law, which took effect last year.

The lawsuit contended the law had disenfranchised some 280,000 voters and threatened hundreds of thousands more.

A disproportionate number of those voters are black and Hispanic, the lawsuit said.

Read more: NAACP sues Alabama over state's voter identification law