The (Afro) Future of Henry Box Brown

Abstract

Henry Box Brown, a Black man born into slavery in the American South, devised an unforeseen yet ingenious plan to achieve emancipation: he was shipped to the North in a cramped, wooden box. The first testament of Brown’s escape was not his emergence from his box, but instead his voice responding to the box’s addressee. Later, Brown reenacts his original escape in Victorian England and becomes “The King of All Mesmerizers” by envisioning an alien future for himself, much like musician and philosopher-poet Sun Ra.