‘AfroPoP’ is Back!

Towards the end of last summer — after Congress defunded public media — I wasn’t sure we’d be in a position to host another season of AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange. Congress’ actions not only blew a gigantic hole in our FY 2026 & 27 budgets, it came on the heels of a decision by the leaders of WGBH to dismantle the marketing and production teams at WORLD, with whom we’d partnered for over a decade.

Losing our cherished presenting partners and having our budget blown up was soul crushing. It took a few months, but the creativity of our programming team combined with the quick response of individual donors and a generous closeout grant from the now defunct Corporation for Public Broadcasting allowed us to salvage the series. 

Breaking New Ground

Season 18 of AfroPoP is unlike any we’ve produced previously. It includes three documentaries: one, about the long-standing crisis in Black maternal health care; another about 20th century rural Black artist Nellie Mae Rowe, who rose to national acclaim with the help of a trailblazing New York art collector/agent; and a third film about the long legacy of racial bias in policing at a major U.S. city.  

This AfroPoP season is especially precious to us because it almost didn’t happen. We are grateful to: our funding partners; our programming partners at PBS Plus who agreed to broadcast two of the films; and to our internal team for championing the idea of streaming our first feature-length AfroPoP film on our YouTube channel —  something we’ve never done before. We also thank WORLD for continuing to carry the two broadcast titles. 

Above all, we’re grateful to the dozens of filmmakers from across the globe whose work is featured in the series. Their storytelling allows us to expose the viewing public to the rich diversity of cultures and innovation found throughout the African diaspora, as well as to the burdensome inequities and vindicating triumphs that Black folks across the globe experience daily. 

Looking Ahead

AfroPoP remains the only national broadcast solely dedicated to delivering stories from the African diaspora. This season marks our 100th broadcast, a milestone I couldn’t even imagine when we launched the series back in 2008. We hope to keep it going for years to come, but we’ll need new funders to make that possible. So, if you know of organizations or individuals that would like to partner with us, we’d love to hear from you.

Meanwhile, get ready to fill the long summer days and hot nights with AfroPoP stories we hope make you proud to be part of this creative family. We certainly appreciate your loyal support.