Nikkolas Smith reframes human history, empowers Black community with "The History of We"
- Kick The Concrete
- May 30
- 14 min read
Updated: May 31
Nikkolas Smith formulated and popularized the term “artivist” to describe his work giving voice to the voiceless and advocating for social justice.
His latest work is refining the origins of humanity in "The History of We," based on research from paleontology that draws the history of humankind back to Africa. It was reviewed and given a stamp of approval by the family of Meave Leakey, the respected British paleontologist whose decades of work has helped shape our knowledge of human history.
Smith combined the research with a heart for empowering young Black children. The idea for the story came to him as a child when what he learned in school didn’t align with what he was told in his community. He hopes that “The History of We” will be what he calls “educational justice,” restoring the Black community to its place as the foundation of humanity. All with a message of unity.
The New York Times bestselling illustrator made a name for himself through his "Sunday Sketch" series of digital drawings. With his new work, Smith wanted to connect more personally with the first people. So he handpainted the captivating pictures to portray the intelligence and emotion of our ancestors. The book seeks to tear down stereotypes like that Black people can’t swim and that the first people were mindless cavemen who spoke gibberish.
In the midst of a tense political and social climate, Smith has had his previous work, including “I Am Ruby Bridges,” “That Flag” and “The Artivist” appear on banned book lists across the country. He hopes “The History of We,” which challenges the previous way human history has been taught, is not added to that. But he has confidence that the power of community will teach today’s children to embrace the fact that we are all a family.
Kick The Concrete spoke with Nikkolas Smith about creating “The History of We,” how his son gives him a sense of purpose and his work on Ryan Coogler's "Sinners" film.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Kick The Concrete: We're here to talk about “The History of We.” What was your inspiration for that?
Nikkolas Smith: Yes, so I am very excited about “The History of We.” It is my 10th picture book and my first hand-painted picture book. So it was a little bit of an experiment. But to go back to way, way back to the inspiration, it kind of started when I was a kid in school in Texas, and really just sitting in class, history class and learning about, there's parts of the textbooks, the history textbooks that talk about, like, you know, the dawn of humanity and all this stuff. And a lot of times they talk about the cradle of civilization. But they usually would say, “Mesopotamia, cradle of civilization.” And they would say like, “It was 10,000 years ago when, you know, humanity started to become civilized,” or whatever. And I always thought that was a little odd, because I always heard stories about the fact that we all come from Africa. And honestly, just there's like, hundreds of thousands of years that were just skipped over in all the textbooks. The idea and the fact is that every human on this earth can be traced back to her (points to Black woman on book cover). A lot of Black kids hear about, “We all come from Africa,” but that part of human history, I feel like, has never properly been visually documented. So I really always wanted to make a book like this. And so as I started to do more research, all the facts kind of really aligned with things that I had heard growing up about how, you know, the first modern humans, I didn't know the exact date until I started doing the research, but it’s about 233,000 years ago that we emerged. The first, the oldest-known, modern human fossils are in Omo Kibish in Ethiopia. That was a great point as an anchor, just to say, like, Okay, this lines up with what I've kind of always heard. But now, I need to research a little bit further. And the more I started to dig this up, I realized, okay, the facts also state that they were called modern humans because they had the same skeletal structure as we do. They had the same brain capacity as us 200,000 years ago. They spoke sentences with nouns and verbs. They laughed and cried like we do. You know, they were us. That really kind of hit home because, obviously there's a lot of the stereotypical you know, cavemen, that kind of stereotype of like the Stone Age. But the Middle Paleolithic Era, which is the Stone Age, was actually full of brilliant Africans. So I thought, hey, this needs to be a book.
KTC: Yeah, it's needed to fill in that history. And did it feel empowering, too? You've heard all life comes from Africa, but to actually piece it together? And how is that empowering for you?
NS: It did. It was extremely empowering. And it is something that I feel like, on one hand, every person on earth needs to be reminded of, but especially young Black children. I was actually working on a film art piece for Ava DuVernay’s film “Origin” a couple years ago. And part of that film, there's this kid named Al Bright. It's a true story about a kid named Al Bright, 1940s, ‘50s. He wasn't able to go swimming with his Little League baseball championship team because of racism. And there's actually so many stories about, especially in the Black community, young Black kids who don't know how to swim and afraid of the water, and their parents and grandparents were never allowed to go to the swimming pool. There's just, like, this kind of a stigma thing. I just wish I could have told like, an Al Bright face-to-face, or so many young Black kids, “Do you know the first swimmer in human history looked like you? Your ancestors invented swimming, you know that?” And so that was kind of part of the whole inspiration behind the whole thing. And it was that moment of empowerment, really, that I wish all the kids could have. And so that kind of translated into this piece in the book, the first swimmer. This was actually one of the first concept sketches that I had for the book. And then I kind of fleshed out the idea of, you know, the manuscript. And then got to crackin’ with the paintings.
KTC: That's amazing. I know you shared that a little bit on social media too, that story of the swimmer. That was really powerful to hear that. And speaking of the paintings, this is your first one that you've painted, right?
NS: Right. Usually I do digital paintings, and I do speed paintings. My digital paintings, I try to make them feel like oil paintings. And so a lot of people think that most of my art is oil paintings. They might even try to, you know, buy an original. And I'm like, it's a JPEG, it's a digital. But for this one, I did want to make it acrylic on canvas paintings. And part of that was just the challenge of, I've never done this before. I want to try it. But also it really kind of goes hand in hand with the theme of the book, the idea of, the first people on Earth. Literally, I'm highlighting the first artist ever, the first ones to literally crush rock and add water and make paint and throw it on a wall and start to tell creative stories visually. So I thought, you know, why not? Why not make it a hand painted picture book?
KTC: It's really beautiful. It's definitely still your style, but it's neat, like, I feel like you can feel the movement more and the emotion. One of my favorites is the dancing one, where they're throwing the person.
NS: Oh, yeah!
KTC: But what was that like, just challenging yourself to create movement and emotion? That feeling of freedom is so beautiful.
NS: I really wanted to kind of get, I feel like it's a, I don't know, it's something at the core of all of us. Going back to the first modern humans is going back to the core of who we are, what we love to do as humans, the freedom of expression. It's everything. Sometimes it's the fears and it's the joy of exploration. It's all the feelings that we can feel. We first felt 200,000 years ago, when we were just figuring out how to create the building blocks of society. And so I feel like that movement, that expression, that feeling, I wanted to have it in all of the paint strokes. Even at the very beginning, I started the whole project with just a hand print. I put my hand in the paint and just like, put it on the canvas. That was my first mark of the whole project. And then from there, I just added everything, using sticks and leaves and sponges and brushes, palette knives, whatever, whatever it took to get that feeling of the first people.
KTC: That's really cool. And how does your son inspire projects like this? You were mentioning you want young Black kids to be able to see themselves and know this history more than just the oral history, but how does he inspire projects like this?
NS: Oh, man, my son inspires me every single day. He's four, going on fivem\, going on 15, because he acts like a teenager already. He's great. He's already walking around the house like “This is the history of we.” He already knew, he kind of got this idea from “The Artivist.” “The Artivist” features a little kid that looks just like him, as this kid who can make art to save the world. And so he kind of embodies himself in the books now. But I want him to be able to see his ancestry, his lineage when he opens up a book. It's just something that I can't even put that into words. It's one of the greatest gifts I feel like I could give him is to kind of like allow him to see himself in a picture book, especially a book that is about something as important as the dawn of civilization, the true dawn of civilization and humanity. I think that's one of the reasons why I started doing picture books in the first place. I wanted to allow so many, a wider range of kids to be able to see themselves. And in this case, like I said, usually I'm trying to be a voice where the voices are marginalized, or a tribute to ancestors. And in this case, it's not just my ancestors, but everybody's ancestors in the whole world. Because the book basically says, if you go back far enough, all of our roots begin to tell the same story. We can all be traced back to her (points to Black woman on book cover). And so it's kind of that thing where I think if everybody can see that, and see where we all come from, it really kind of like makes it very trivial and ridiculous, the whole concept of racism when you understand that we only changed skin color because some of our ancestors went to the cold part of the world with less sunlight, and so we have different hair texture, skin color. It's really not that big of a deal. We are literally all one human race. We talk a lot about how race is a social construct, right? And so this book kind of just drives that point home, like scientifically and factually. We literally don't need to continue to split ourselves up into other races, because we are all Homo Sapiens. It is what it is. Maybe long before 200,000 years ago, there were other races of people on the earth, but it's just us now. So it's us. We all we got, right? So, yeah, that's the point of it all.
KTC: That message is just so needed. I feel like it's one of those things we can hear and we need to be reminded of it too, in this day and age.
NS: Absolutely.
KTC: Was there anything that you learned in doing your research or in making this project that surprised you, or that stood out as extra meaningful or important?
NS: I think one of the things was just how long of a span of time that Africans were all over the earth. I mean, literally 200,000 years. You have at least, like 100,000 years there where we were just in Africa. Like I say in the book, we were developing tools and inventions for survival, but also the arts for enjoyment, and doing that for 100,000 years. And then we decided to leave Africa and for another, basically 80, 90,000 years, I don't know, we were all over the world, going Southeast Asia, Australia, into Europe, into the Americas, all of that. And so gradually our skin tone started to get a little bit lighter and lighter. And it really wasn't until 9,000 years ago that you have the full range of the skin tone spectrum. So there was a good 180,000 years there, where it’s just like Black people on earth. So that was kind of a mind-blowing realization as I'm doing all the research.
And then, I was doing research from Meave Leakey, who was one of the preeminent paleontologists in the world. And she has books like “The Sediments of Time,” so many books on paleontology and just the Middle Paleolithic Era. And then once I finished the whole book, my publisher told me that the book was gonna be reviewed by the Leakey Family, like THE Leakey Family, to make sure it was all accurate and everything. And I was a little bit in shock, but it was okay. Everything was good. They gave me their stamp of approval. And they even added in some little specifics, like two hundred thirty-THREE thousand years ago, and just a little bit fine-tuning to make sure everything was exactly as it is shown in research. So it is a little kind of like a National Geographic slice of history that I feel like everybody should be reminded of at all times and know about.
KTC: What an honor to have that official stamp on it. And even to your first point, sometimes society today thinks we're so important. But we're a glimpse, a breath, a vapor compared to that society.
NS: It’s been a long time we've been doing these things. I was talking to some students today at an elementary school about just the music. One of the oldest like noise-making instruments that was never invented was over 100,000 years ago. It’s basically like the little spinny stick that you pull the string and it goes, “zzz!” that kind of thing, and the kids love that thing. And the kids are like, “I have that toy” and blah, blah. I'm like, “Yeah, that was invented 100,000 years ago in Africa. We've been doing cool things for a long time, right?”
KTC: That's really fun. And the timelessness of it too, kids are still mesmerized by those things. Yeah, that's neat. And then I know you did some work on “Sinners,” and you have built a relationship with Ryan Coogler, but what was it like working on that project that had made such a big cultural impact and is gonna be in cinematic history?
NS: That was so special. I'm just honored to have had a role in that project. Very thankful to Ryan Coogler. It's actually his birthday today. Shout out. I’m very thankful just to be able to be part of any Coogler project. I think we actually, me and Ryan got to LA kind of around the same time, and when I would see him, like, in Watts and different volunteer events and doing things, and when I would see him in certain places, even in Hollywood, I would just like, show him my artwork and be like, “Hey, we should work together. We should do some stuff.” And we eventually collaborated on “Space Jam” and multiple other projects that he's worked on. Super thankful to him. He's always pulling me in on whatever things he's working on, “Black Panther,” whatever. For “Sinners,” to be the concept artist for the film, I still, it's just a surreal feeling. It's kind of the thing where, you know, Ryan will send me the script, I'll read it, and then he'll just, like, leave it in my hands. “Tell me what are the points that you feel like need to be visualized?” And I'll sketch it out and send it to him. And so, yeah, it's a special, special feeling. At that point when I'm doing concept art, I do my thing, I give it to the team, and that kind of just like, let them run with it. And then a year later, I'm like, wow, okay, project's almost done. And so it was cool, also that he tapped me to ask me to do the movie poster, one of the movie posters for the film. And so, yeah, it's just, it's a surreal thing. It's special, and it's a genius film. Ryan is a genius. Just for it to be so like already ingrained just in pop culture, but also just in Black culture, the different layers of the South and music, the blues. I'm from Texas. Ryan has roots in the South, and it's just, man, it's just a gorgeous film that I think will live on forever and ever. I'm very, very proud of that, to just be a part of it.
KTC: What does it mean to have someone like Ryan, just as a fellow artist and storyteller? I know it was a big deal, the fact he has ownership in this film is a unique element to it. But what does it mean to just have community in that way?
NS: It means a lot. Ryan is a great person. He's been super supportive of me and my art. I can't even put it into words. Every step of the way, like, for years, he's been supporting my art, supporting my vision, bringing me onto his projects. He's dropped nuggets of wisdom at every step of the way through films or just through his own life, just like the things that he does in life. We're always just like, taking notes. That's one of those intangible things I can't really put into words. It's just like, I'm really glad that he's doing what he's doing as an icon, as a visionary, as a leader, he's doing incredible things.
KTC: We all need those people to keep us encouraged. Especially as artists, I think, like it can be lonely. It can be, “Am I doing the right thing?”
NS: Yeah, absolutely.
KTC: You've worked with so many people, and you've had people retweet your work. At this point, is there a dream collab that you would like to work with?
NS: Yeah, when you say, when you mentioned people retweeting my work, I think of Michelle Obama, and I'm like, Hey, maybe I could, maybe that would be cool to do a book with Michelle Obama. I’m just saying! That would be special. I don’t know. Beyoncé? I don’t know. I'm from Houston, so I had to shout out Queen Bey. But yeah, I don't know there's so many folks that I would love to continue to follow and possibly work on projects with.
KTC: It'll be so fun to just see where your journey keeps going. It's been really neat to see you get so many different opportunities and make an impact in so many different lanes of culture.
NS: Thank you.
KTC: Yeah! Well, I think that's all that I had. Is there anything else you wanted to share about “The History of We” or what you're working on?
NS: As I'm talking to young students about the book, I just feel like, when I'm asked, “How can you describe the book?” I feel like the phrase that I keep coming back to is “educational justice,” because it is kind of like that missing piece that I never had in school, that a lot of kids do not still have as they're learning about human history. So it is, in a way, for me, educational justice. And I hope that we can start to have this conversation in schools. I do have a lot of banned books. Hopefully this doesn't become a banned book just like the other ones. You never know these days. But I do think it does need to be in schools. Even outside of schools and community, just talking about our shared ancestry and what life was like and how we can all hopefully come together as a global collective of extended cousins. We need to come together.
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