Bass, Jr., Kingsley B. [pseud. of Ed Bullins]; Marvin X

Two Black Arts Movement items affiliated with the New Lafayette Theatre: Promotional sheet for We Righteous Bombers [with] The Black Bird (A Parable) [broadside]

New York: The New Lafayette Theatre, [1969]. A promotional sheet for the controversial Black Arts play, We Righteous Bombers, which was published in New Plays from the Black Theatre: An Anthology (1969) and staged at the New Lafayette Theatre in Harlem beginning April 18, 1969. The play was attributed to a 24-year-old black man named Kingsley B. Bass, Jr. who was purportedly killed in the Detroit riots in 1967. As a reworking of Albert Camus' Les Justes, the played earned Bass a posthumous award for literary excellence. But as scholar Jack B. Moore states, "For perhaps the first time in history, a literary award for excellence had been given to a dead man who had never existed, for stealing a play he had not written." Or as Black Arts Movement figure Larry Neal said, This is serious shit. What we have on our hands is the first literary hoax of the Black Arts Movement. Bad scene" (qtd. in Moore, p. 46).

The hoax was perpetrated by playright Ed Bullins who wrote the play in an attempt to interrogate the revolutionary violence of the black liberation movement. The play follows a group of black revolutionaries who decide to kill the 'Grand Prefect', and like Les Justes, asks: "What is the effect upon the mind and spirit of reasoning man, of the decision to commit murder to prevent the inhumane treatment of his people" (Moore, p. 47). The play outraged black militants and a heated symposium was convened by the play's director and New Lafayette founder Robert Macbeth on May 11, 1969. Amiri Baraka and Larry Neal defended the play and Askia Muhammad Toure, Ernie Mkalimoto. and Marvin X all criticized it and accused Bullins of writing it. Bullins didn't appear. The transcript of the symposium was published in issue 4 of the Black Theatre, the New Lafayette's magazine.

Stapled to the promotional sheet is a broadside for Marvin X's one-act play, The Black Bird (A Parable), which was written "for the children of the Third World." The parable tells the story of a black bird who is conditioned to staying in his cage even when the door is open. His master feeds him crumbs while congratulating himself: "This little black food has made me rich doing tricks and he's too dumb to fly away to freedom - what a stupid bird!" The master's house catches fire one day and the black bird is finally convinced by a fellow black bird to fly away from his cage and master.

The promotional sheet for the play is printed on both sides of an 11" x 9" sheet and includes the performance information and the cast list. The Little Black Bird is printed on one side of a 10 ½” x 8" sheet. We're unsure why these were issued together, although Marvin X was critical of Bullins' play. See, Moore, Jack B. “The (In)Humanity of Assassination: Plays by Albert Camus and Kingsley B. Bass, Jr.” MELUS 8, no. 3 (1981): 45–56. https://doi.org/10.2307/467536. Item #14983

Price: $250.00