Black Psychedelic Revolution

From Trauma to Liberation--How to Heal from Racial, Generational, and Systemic Trauma Through Reclaiming Black Psychedelic Culture

De: Nicholas Powers, Monica Williams PhD - foreword

Narrado por: Nicholas Powers

How psychedelics can heal historical, intergenerational, and racialized trauma—an Afrofuturistic take on Black psychedelia toward joy and liberation

The mainstream has long viewed psychedelic medicine as the purview of people with privilege: money to burn, time to trip, and the social safety to experiment. Though psychedelics have deep roots in Black and Indigenous cultures, Western psychedelic spaces have historically excluded People of Color—but the radical healing of psilocybin, MDMA, and ketamine aren’t just for a rarefied elite. And they’re definitely not just for white people.

Combined with quality therapy, safe and equitable access, and full-scale societal healing, psychedelics are a shortcut to liberation, dignity, and power—the “Promised Land” as envisioned by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Risqué? Sure. But it’s true.

In Black Psychedelic Revolution, Dr. Nicholas Powers charts how psychedelics can heal racial pain passed on through generations. He shows how this medicine unlocks a return to one’s self, facilitating an embodied experience of safety, peace, and being-here-now otherwise disrupted by whiteness—and he explores how psychedelics can catalyze individual wellness even as they transcend it. Drugs taken with therapy can heal. But drugs taken with a social movement can heal a nation.

Powers unpacks how the Drug War, racist policing, mass incarceration, and community gatekeeping intersect to sideline POC—specifically Black people—from the psychedelic movement. He asserts the need for a full-stop reclamation and revolution: one that eschews psychedelic exceptionalism, breaks down raced and classed constructs of “good” vs. “bad” drugs, realizes healing, and lives into a free, strong, and independent Blackness.

©2025 Nicholas Powers (P)2025 North Atlantic Books

Reseñas de la Crítica

“White supremacy is relentless, but so are we. Black Psychedelic Revolution helps
us see how we can begin to get free. Once that happens, we’ll be unstoppable.”
—SIA HENRY, JD, senior policy associate, MAPS

“Black Psychedelic Revolution invites the working class to flip the table rather than beg for token seats.”
—HEATHER HARVEY, cofounder of Black Revolutionary Theatre Workshop

Breaks down the link between psychedelics and systemic oppression

It’s so easy to only think about psychedelics on the individual level but I love that this book challenged me to imagine their value at the interpersonal level. The idea of collective transference really set a light bulb off for me and I think it may be tied to releasing collective shame which comes from internalized forms of hate (internalized racism, homophobia, misogyny and others depending on your social location). Such a cool read and the voice is also very soothing.