Even the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic could not stop the tenth an­nu­al Bo­cas Lit Fest from start­ing on Fri­day.

But with so­cial dis­tanc­ing as a vi­tal part of the new nor­mal, this will be a Lit Fest like no oth­er: com­plete­ly on­line.

The ac­tiv­i­ties from the three-day fes­ti­val will be live-streamed on the Lit Fest's web­site and so­cial me­dia pages.

On Sat­ur­day, the fes­ti­val will com­mem­o­rate the 1970's Black Pow­er Move­ment- as three writ­ers dis­cuss how the events back then can be seen in to­day's so­ci­ety.

In an in­ter­view with CNC3's the Morn­ing Brew, the fes­ti­val's mar­ket­ing and me­dia co­or­di­na­tor Ar­dene Sir­joo said all of the events card­ed for the fes­ti­val will be com­plete­ly free to on­line au­di­ences and there is no reg­is­tra­tion re­quired.

Join­ing Sir­joo in the in­ter­view was his­to­ri­an Chike Pil­grim.

Pil­grim is one of the au­thors card­ed for Sat­ur­day's pan­el dis­cus­sion, along with Amíl­car Sanatan and At­til­lah Springer.

The three will dis­cuss the ef­fects of what the 1970s rev­o­lu­tion means for to­day's is­sues of race and class. The dis­cus­sion will be chaired by Suni­ty Ma­haraj.

Speak­ing to Morn­ing Brew host Na­talee Legore, Pil­grim said he in­ter­viewed sev­er­al peo­ple who were in­volved in the move­ment in the 1970s.

He said he in­ter­viewed those who were op­posed to the move­ment as he felt it was im­por­tant to show both sides of the his­to­ry.

"It was a very crit­i­cal move­ment in our na­tion's his­to­ry, these pe­ri­ods are ones I don't think we should ig­nore, as a his­to­ri­an it sad­dens me that these are things we gloss over," Pil­grim said.

The Bo­cas Lit Fest will be streamed live at www.bo­caslit­fest.com/2020/live, face­book.com/bo­caslit­fest, and youtube.com/bo­caslit­fest.