A Black Mass

A Black Mass
Written by	Amiri Baraka
Date premiered	1966
Original language	English

A Black Mass is a play written by Amiri Baraka and performed at Proctor's Theatre in Newark, New Jersey in 1966. Baraka also recorded a version of the play with Sun Ra's Myth-Science Orchestra in 1968.^[1] The play is based on the religious doctrine of Yakub as taught by the Nation of Islam. The story of Yakub describes the origin of "colored" people according to this doctrine.^[2]

In the play, Baraka inverts the idea that white symbolizes goodness and black symbolizes wickedness, so that the images of beauty and life are associated with blackness.^[3]

References

1. Discogs
2. Watts, Jerry Gafio (2001). Amiri Baraka: the politics and art of a Black intellectual. NYU Press. p. 503 n.32. ISBN 978-0-8147-9373-2. Retrieved 11 July 2011. The Baraka play A Black Mass is based on the Nation of Islam's Yacub myth.
3. Elam, Harry Justin (2001). Taking It to the Streets: The Social Protest Theater of Luis Valdez and Amiri Baraka. University of Michigan Press. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-472-08768-6. Retrieved 11 July 2011.