Obsidian Collection: Reviving The Black History In The Metaverse Via NFTs

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are yet again proving to be a way to take folks back to history. 

Recently, The Obsidian Collection, a primary archive for the Black media headquartered in Chicago, dropped its first NFTs. These are an edit of fifteen rarely seen images of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

They were captured by John Tweedle, whose work was featured in The Daily News, The Chicago Sun-Times, Jet magazine, and some other publications. They depict the King’s efforts during the Chicago Freedom movement of 1966. 

The pictures feature the instance while King is addressing a massive number of audience at Chicago’s Soldier Field and in the old International Amphitheatre, along with his candid moments during King’s month-long visits. 

The selection was quite intentional and drawn from the personal collection of entrepreneur, author, and philanthropist Hermene Hartman. 

Obsidian’s founder and executive director, Angela Ford, wanted to avoid sterile old tropes as the King stepped into the metaverse. 

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According to Ford, it is important that as they digitalize and tell black stories, they humanize a lot of that history. So they have got pictures of the King laughing, smiling, and touching people. And that it is not just that we shall overcome things. The black diaspora is not trauma. 

She anticipates Obsidian, which was rolled out in 2017, to emerge as an authentic voice of authentic history by preserving and sharing pictures and artifacts from Black culture. She hopes this to happen in both mainstream media and the new iteration of the internet, Web3. 

Ford found a great way to expand the collection’s reach through Lobus, a platform that powers physical and digital art ownership. 

The mind behind Lobus Lori Hotz highlights that she met Angela, and she blew her away at hello. And that her mission really plays well into what they focus on, that is, leveraging blockchain, smart contracts, and NFTs to facilitate creators and cultural institutions, and that the powerful thing is that it would have a great impact on the broader community. 

Furthermore, Angela Ford’s focus is to build out a presence on Web3 just as she has IRL. She highlights that they really want to continue exploring, and they will put many of these images out as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs); they would create galleries in the metaverse. They want to be the throughline for the historic Black images; they matter. 

These instances signify that NFTs are just beyond digital art and that it is also faciliating to educate folks and empowering them. 

Steve Anderson is an Australian crypto enthusiast. He is a specialist in management and trading for over 5 years. Steve has worked as a crypto trader, he loves learning about decentralisation, understanding the true potential of the blockchain.

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