This month, WWB took a look back at some of the important writing on race and racism to be found in the magazine’s archives. In the wake of 2020’s racist violence, and subsequent organizing by the Black Lives Matter movement and others to combat white supremacy, literary magazines and publishers everywhere have, to differing degrees, made efforts to publish more Black writers. But as some Black writers and editors have pointed out, it is equally as important that we evaluate the assumptions and practices behind these initiatives.

US-based translator Aaron Robertson, Mozambique-based publisher Sandra Tamele, and Haiti-based writer Évelyne Trouillot write on the meaningful changes we need to better publish Black writers from around the world in the twenty-first century.