Veteran creates board game celebrating Black culture

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — An Indianapolis man has launched a new trivia board game that celebrates Black culture and historical achievements from American sociologists, historians, civil rights activists to musicians and entertainers.

“Knowledge of Self,” created by Indianapolis native Jamaal Nelson, is a trivia board game about black culture and history for all generations.

“You might pick up a card about Beyonce, Megan Thee Stallion, Lil Baby,” laughed Nelson.

Up to five people can play the game, guessing questions and the goal is not to get eliminated.

“The point of the board game is you laugh and learn as you venture through black history and culture,” Nelson said. “From black sayings and doings. Black music, black activists and black revolutionaries and inventors.”

The 24-year-old Nelson says he came up with the concept of the game while in the U.S. military after reading “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander.

From there, he continued to read more books by Black scholars and began developing the board game. He says he wanted to share the things about Black people that he was never taught in school.

“That was the first time I read a book on my own, and I began to think differently about myself, the world, and my own people,” said Nelson.

While deployed in Germany, Nelson worked on launching the product, and literally, Nelson took matters into his own hands until he eventually found a manufacturer.

“It used to take me 67 hours to make one handmade board game from scratch all by myself,” said Nelson.

Then, still determined, he depleted his savings to get things off the ground.

“Through my four-and-a-half years in the military, I invested every penny I saved into my business,” said Nelson.

He also got help from the Ujamaa Community Bookstore in Indianapolis.

“I had never had my product in a store before,” said Nelson.

His goal now is to change the way game night has traditionally been seen while challenging people like him to think and appreciate Black culture.

“Begin to think differently on how to better our conditions, circumstances and our predicaments instead of depending on other programs and factors to do for us, what we can do for ourselves,” he said.

Right now, the game is available at the Ujamaa Community Bookstore, and there are plans to launch a digital version of the game as early as next month.