In 1925, Dr. Carter G. Woodson planned the inaugural week-long observance of Black history, an idea sparked by his belief that teaching Black history was essential to ensure the physical and intellectual survival of Black people within broader society. He said, “If a race has no history, it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.” Little did he know that this week-long observance would evolve into a national reckoning, one we’re still fighting to protect.

A century later, we honor what Woodson started. But recognition didn’t come easy, and now, at this milestone, we’re still fighting similar battles he’d recognize all too well.

We’re watching a systematic erasure of books like The 1619 Project, Beloved, Between the World and Me & Black Boy by Richard Wright pulled from shelves. Monuments removed. Curricula stripped of honest analyses of slavery, Jim Crow, and systemic racism. This isn’t a coincidence. It’s a strategy. Because Black history is American history, the good, the bad, and everything in between. These stories enable possibility. These stories prevent repetition. These stories offer hope. And that makes them dangerous to those invested in maintaining a sanitized past and a curated future.

Woodson wrote, “When you control a man’s thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it.”

One hundred years later, the fight for whose stories get told, and who gets to tell them, continues. This issue highlighted the next generation of artists who refuse to find their “proper place.” They’re reclaiming their narratives, creating in spite of censorship, and insisting on a future where history cannot be erased.

In these pages, you met a milliner keeping a dying craft alive and flipping it on its head. A denim designer channeling Warhol and Basquiat, documenting his own becoming in real time. Each of them understands what Woodson knew: that to control your story is to claim your survival.

But progress is not inevitable. It must be protected, amplified, and carried forward. So I hope you enjoyed these stories. Share them. Speak them. Teach them. Because a century of honoring Black history means nothing if we allow the next generation to inherit silence.

The post CONTRIBUTING EDITOR’S LETTER: WHY A CENTURY OF STORIES MATTERS appeared first on Karjaka Magazine.

I wake up… I look around, and I see my bedroom wall covered in moments I captured. It was 2022 when I first started taking these images consciously. Four years have passed. Now, when I look at the original pictures, it feels like poetry. My mind reminds my body how I felt. Alone… I wish I could’ve told Omar (me) that it would be okay. That these moments captured would evolve into a greater art, and that my loneliness would only lead me closer to understanding the self, the art. Closer to the child I was. Denim became the language between us — through this practice, I revisit the novelty of childhood.

When I meet people and introduce myself as an artist, I mean it. This practice has guided me as long as I can remember, from drawing a stick-figure self-portrait in preschool to just having an interest in it and finding peace. I wonder if the term ‘artist’ is as meaningful as it was before… or has it become more meaningful? I find myself studying the greats — inspired by their stories of struggle and what they went through in the old world to make it as artists. Warhol knew he had to leave Pittsburgh for New York in 1949 to pursue his career. He knew the world around him was changing into a commercialized one, and he made the crucial move to not be left behind. Basquiat let his spirit speak, leaving his frustrations, questions, and answers on the canvas for the viewers to consume. As an artist working in denim, I resonate with their stories, struggles, and families.

Creating in denim has now become a habit of mine. A habit and art form that I like. I wore a uniform until I got to college, but there were times when I could dress down, and I always wanted to match colors. If I didn’t have a certain pair of jeans or pants that I liked, it wouldn’t work. In 2025, I completed the first set of PowerJeans. A self-documentation spanning almost a full year, and at its core, is denim jeans with differentiating colors representing emotions and elements of the self. The jeans and colored leather are meant to evoke one’s earliest childhood memories. It seemed like in 2023 and 2024, we saw everything in fashion, and at a certain point, I felt it all became regurgitated. The Power Jeans’ simple silhouette, matched with eye-popping color, was my direct response to all the complicated, exaggerated silhouettes. 

In today’s world with technology, I wonder how art will be transformed, connected, moved, shared, and digested. A part of me wants to continue blending art, life, and technology into one, and that’d be the transformation. But another part of me wants to get everybody off their phones and back to digesting things physically in the real world, not on a screen in the open air where art can breathe. 

We all have internal and external struggles that get in between us and our art. Over the last six months, I’ve been battling with putting myself, my art, or the external forces around me first. Sometimes I find myself getting distracted, looking for another “peace”. But honestly, there is no other. The art of denim is my peace. Making is my peace. Using my hands to create something out of nothing is peace.

At 23, I don’t want to wonder… I know I’m great, and I know I can make it for certain. It comes down to putting myself and my art into the world. A professor once told me, “Art is not done until it is displayed for the world to see, then it’s complete.” The world must see how I see — how Omar saw in 2022, and how he’s looking forward now. I remind myself to enjoy the journey and the hardships that come along with it. I remind myself that no matter how long it takes, I must continue to put one foot after the other. I look at the world around me and imagine that one day, I will be remembered as one of the greats.

The post The Power of Denim appeared first on Karjaka Magazine.