Dark Matter University (DMU), a network of activist-academics committed to challenging and shifting the inequities that define academic institutions of architecture, emerged in the aftermath of the political unrest that followed the police murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breanna Taylor, in the USA—and at the height of the Covid pandemic. The sense of urgency that emerged from these two overlapping crises “just kicked into high gear,” explains Jerome Haferd, the Harlem-based architect, then an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of Architecture. He and other colleagues had been exploring how they could challenge this status quo long before 2020. “There are some historical groups—some that are more canonical, you could say, in architecture—that we were thinking about and looking at, but also responding critically to,” says Haferd. The moment’s urgency accelerated their formalisation into DMU, but they were not alone. Around the same period, various design justice collectives were forming across the United States. What set DMU apart was its proposition. They would unflinchingly and boldly tackle issues of race in design from the position of design and built environment professionals of colour.