SAN FRANCISCO – The San Francisco Public Library kicks off more than a month’s worth of Black History Month programming starting with the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. For their premier event on Sunday, they will examine the Black horror genre and its role in healing communities. 

This year, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day coincides with Inauguration Day in the U.S. 

One day before the convergence of the holiday and Donald Trump’s inauguration, The SFPL presents, Shadows and Light: Exploring Black Horror and Black Healing.

Organizers say the timing of the event is aligned with MLK Day, and the overlap with Inauguration Day is purely coincidental.

Shawna Sherman, manager of SFPL’s African American Center, says the event marks the launch of more than a month’s worth of Black History Month programming at the library and that they always kick off the festivities on MLK Jr. weekend. 

What they’re saying:

“We partnered with Sistah Scifi on this event because we think it’s a great opportunity for Black horror fans to come together and celebrate their love of the genre,” Sherman says. She adds that the library as a resource provider is a venue for free exchange and deep conversation on a variety of perspectives. 

 In 2019, Isis Asare launched Sistah Scifi, the first Black-owned bookstore focused on science fiction and fantasy. 

Asare says the event will attract as many as 300 people throughout the day. It includes a keynote talk by author and film historian, Tananarive Due, as well as deep dives into the historical context of Black horror and how narratives from this genre can reflect societal fears and injustice. 

Healing and empowerment

George Romero’s classic zombie apocalypse film, 1968’s ‘Night of the Living Dead’, is explored in a documentary film produced by Due, Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror.

In reality, the late ‘60s was a tumultuous time of societal upheaval rife with assassinations, including those of Dr. King and Malcolm X. Romero’s film is revolutionary in the sense that it’s a Black man, as Due once put it, who is the “rare Black lead” character in the film. Prior to this film, Due and other scholars observed that Black people in horror were only included as comic relief or to elevate white characters to make them appear more dignified. 

The character, named Ben, is handsome, strong-willed, decisive and dignified whether the audience was ready for him or not. Due has lectured that this type of character may have been nightmarish for racist viewers of that era who were anti-integration. Seeing Ben ordering around the white characters may not have sat well with audience members who didn’t want to change the social structure. 

In the end, Ben, the final survivor of the zombie onslaught is tragically shot by a white mob. 

“Exploring Black horror in particular allows us to look at those monsters and overcome,” Asare says. “You see that in ‘Night of the Living Dead’. You see that in Parable of the Sower, where the characters deal with a lot of the stuff that we’re dealing with today. A presidential candidate who wins on the [slogan] of Make America Great Again and you see a character overcome that.” 

She’s referring to Afrofuturistic sci-fi author Octavia Butler’s prophetic novel, which has been adapted into a graphic novel by John Jennings, who is featured at this event in a panel discussion on Healing Through Horror. 

Set in California, 2025, the original book was written more than 30 years ago. 

“You see a California that is engulfed in wildfires and see how characters navigate that,” Asare says. “Black horror in particular is, we’re hoping, a space where our community can face our monsters both the real and imagined and come away with tools to feel powerful and take those tools towards a path of healing.”

Triple marginalized 

“I really love writing about queer Black girls and horror in general is just one of my favorite genres,” Hayley Dennings said.

Dennings is an author who grew up in the Bay Area. She now lives in Oakland. Her first novel, This Ravenous Fate, is a New York Times bestseller. In her work, she looks to twist around the tropes of the past. 

“I feel like horror in general is like a great genre used to explore real human emotions and especially the tumultuous times that are happening,” says Dennings. “You see it a lot, especially in Gothic horror. Specific monsters were used to portray minorities and to scare people off from having certain connections to those minorities.”

She explains how this is seen in stories about vampires. “Vampires are seen as these creatures of the night or our shadow selves that represent desire that a lot of people don’t like to admit to.

“I am writing about queer, Black girls who are triple marginalized. I don’t want to write a book that tells girls they can’t be queer, they should be ashamed of their Blackness,” says Dennings. “For me, it’s very empowering to get to use these classically problematic tropes and turn them around into something more powerful and to tap into the darker parts of our psyche and kind of use it as a way to explore our trauma, which a lot of times are left hidden.”

She sees what some hold against her almost like a superpower. 

“There aren’t that many stories that are honest about this experience,” Dennings says. “I think the publishing industry likes to make things more palatable to a more straight white audience. So it’s cool to get to be really raw about my truth and to actually have people connect with that.”

History still relevant

Dennings’ current novel is set about 100 years ago during the Harlem Renaissance. 

“There are a lot of issues that the characters are facing 100 years ago in 1926 that are still relevant today,” says Dennings. 

She lists medical racism (Tuskegee experiment) and misogyny towards Black females as examples. Looking back, she says even the intergenerational trauma from the generation that endured slavery was still relevant and had not been processed by the 1920s. 

“It’s a way to find connections to our ancestors and our pasts. So much of the history, the Black history that I was taught was full of trauma,” says Dennings. “I have a lot of readers who tell me, ‘This feels really familiar even though it is a historical novel.’ Even though there is so much of our history that has been ignored, we still can uncover it and still feel really connected to it.”

Healing from trauma can mean reclaiming the narrative. Dennings looks to present a more nuanced version of what she calls a full human story of Blackness, one that isn’t just about the brutality and monstrosity of the past. 

She says horror is a way to explore the various emotions. 

Sherman agrees. 

“Horror stories, whether in fiction or graphic novels or film – I think they confirm for us the horrors that we experience, you know? Yes, slavery was that brutal. And yes, science experiments have been conducted on Black people. And yes, the state has even made some of us infertile. You know, I could go on,” says Sherman. “This is not science fiction. It’s real and sometimes it might be easy for us to forget some of these things. But when we have them fictionalized in movies, in fiction, in books, it becomes, I think, easier for us to face.”

Keeping it accessible

Attendees are encouraged to connect with each other and to check out the event’s Black marketplace. Seven vendors in the realm of health and wellness will be on hand. 

Books by the featured authors will be on sale, but since the event is at the library, guests will have a chance to pick up a library card if they don’t already have one. SFPL has a trove of material on this very topic. 

As Asare says, this event is catered to people who are excited about the horror genre and who want to dive deeper into Black horror. Maybe you’ve only watched Jordan Peele’s Get Out. That’s fine. You don’t need a PhD in Black literature to engage in these conversations or to simply be curious. 

Andre Torrez is a digital content producer for KTVU. Email Andre at andre.torrez@fox.com or call him at 510-874-0579. 

Former nine-year NFL quarterback and Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich is the latest name to emerge in the Seattle Seahawks’ OC search.

Report: Another Seahawks OC candidate gets 2nd interview

NFL on CBS insider Jonathan Jones reported on social media Friday morning that Leftwich has interviewed for the Seattle job, making him the fifth reported candidate to do so.

Leftwich, 45, spent four seasons as Tampa Bay’s OC from 2019 to 2022. During that time, he directed some of the league’s highest-scoring offenses. With Jameis Winston at quarterback in 2019, the Bucs finished fourth in the league in scoring. Then after Tom Brady took over at QB, Tampa Bay ranked third in scoring during its Super Bowl-winning 2020 season and second in scoring in 2021.

However, the Bucs tumbled to 25th in Brady’s final year in 2022. Leftwich was fired after that season and hasn’t coached in the NFL since.

Rick Stroud, who covers the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times, joined Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy on Friday to share his insight on Leftwich. Stroud said it remains perplexing that Leftwich hasn’t gotten another NFL gig, especially after he was considered a front-runner for the Jacksonville Jaguars head coaching job prior to the 2022 season.

“The production (was) really remarkable in terms of the passing game,” Stroud said. “And then of course, once they got Tom Brady, the team really took off and won a Super Bowl. So I think it’s unfortunate for Byron. He didn’t get much credit for what was done here, but he was the game planner. He was the play caller. And he had some of the most prolific offenses in the National Football League.

“It’s really been kind of frustrating for him and mysterious that he hasn’t gotten that attention (from NFL teams),” Stroud added.

During the Jaguars’ 2022 head coaching search, there was a report that Leftwich turned down the job because he didn’t want to work with general manager Trent Baalke. Leftwich denied those claims, according to a recent article published in The Athletic.

“There were a lot of rumors and things that he doesn’t understand – one of them being that he wouldn’t want to work for Trent Balke,” Stroud said. “He told me, ‘Rick, I never had one discussion about the general manager in Jacksonville. I would have taken that job no questions asked about who was in the front office.’

“So in this day of agents and media – and sometime media sharing the same agents, quite frankly – guys push people that they have relations with. And Byron is not a campaigner. He’s the most affable guy I’ve ever worked with. I know the players love him. (He) never had a problem with a coaching staff member that I’m aware. So I think it’s just that, in an era of self-promotion, that’s the part that he may not have done very well. … But he’s ready to coach again.”

During his four-year run in Tampa Bay, Leftwich had one of the league’s top passing attacks. The Bucs ranked No. 1 in passing yardage in both 2019 and 2021, and No. 2 in passing yardage in 2020 and 2022. However, their ground attack was lagging, ranking in the bottom quarter of the league in rushing yardage all four years. In Leftwich’s final two seasons, Tampa Bay had the lowest run play rate in the league.

That run-pass imbalance would seem to be at odds with what Seattle head coach Mike Macdonald is looking for. Macdonald and the Seahawks moved on from offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb after one season, citing philosophical differences that appeared to be centered around Seattle’s inability to get the run game untracked. The Seahawks finished 28th in rushing yardage and had the fifth-lowest run rate in the league.

Stroud was asked whether he thinks Leftwich’s pass-heavy background in Tampa Bay would be an issue for Seattle.

“The offense that he ran is really an adaptation of what (former Arizona Cardinals and Tampa Bay head coach) Bruce Arians did for years and years,” Stroud said. “And it was good enough to win a Super Bowl with a 43-year-old quarterback who wasn’t the most mobile guy in the world. They started that Super Bowl season 7-5 and they made some changes. They shored up some protections and convinced Tom to take more shots down the field, and that’s when their offense really took off.

“And look, there’s a lot of ways to get things done. And a lot of times (with) the screen game, throws in the flat are just an extension of the running game. But I’ve never known Byron to be averse to running the football when you’re doing it successfully. So there’s definitely a philosophy. It was more of a pass-first offense – there’s no question about that. But they attacked people and they created a lot of problems for the defense.”

Listen to the full conversation with the Tampa Bay Times’ Rick Stroud at this link or in the audio player near the top of this story. Tune in to Bump and Stacy weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Seattle Sports.

More on the Seattle Seahawks

• Insider: Why Seattle Seahawks’ 28-year-old OC candidate is ‘fascinating’
• Report: Seahawks to hold 2nd interview with Klint Kubiak for OC job
• How would Klint Kubiak fit as Seattle Seahawks OC?
• Daniel Jeremiah: What Seattle Seahawks should look for in next OC
• Seattle Seahawks OC Search: Insiders weigh in on each candidate

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