Gallery Talk: Exploring Mapping Malcolm with Najha Zigbi-Johnson

Mapping Malcolm (Columbia UP, 2024) continues the project of reinscribing Malcolm X’s memory and legacy in the present by exploring his commitment to community building and his articulation of a global power analysis as it continues to manifest across New York City today. More specifically, the book explores the limits and possibilities of the archive, the political, material, and philosophical legacy of the Black radical tradition, the Black diaspora, and the state. Oriented toward sovereignty and liberation, Mapping Malcolm brings together artists, community organizers, and scholars to consider the politics of Black space-making in Harlem through a range of historical, cultural, and anti-imperialist worldviews designed to offer new, reparatory pedagogical possibilities.

Najha Zigbi-Johnson is a writer and cultural organizer. Her Harlem-based practice explores the intersections of contemporary Black art, the built environment, and social movements. She is the editor of Mapping Malcolm (2024), a transdisciplinary publication that brings together artists, community organizers, and scholars to consider the politics of Black space-making in Harlem and across the diasporic world. Najha is a graduate of Guilford College and Harvard Divinity School, and was subsequently a Research Fellow at the Graduate School of Architecture Preservation and Planning at Columbia University. Currently, Najha’s work explores how Black political movements give way to cultural production and institution building. This ongoing inquiry is shaped by her roles lecturing in architecture and political science at the City College of New York, her curatorial work, and her writing practice. Najha’s work has been published by New York Magazine, Artforum, SEEN Journal, Essence, White Cube Gallery, and more.

This program is made possible with support from Duke University’s Black Archival Imagination Lab, Africa Initiative, Department of African and African American Studies, Concilium on Southern Africa, Department of English, and the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute.