She asked me if I had any ideas, and I said sure, I’d like to write an opera about Malcolm X. I made them much more rhythmic, with short sentences so Anthony could set them. I imagined it as being in three acts, and I labeled each act: Hate, Fear, Love. I thought of it as a classic tragedy, where there’s a false unity that’s destroyed and you come back to the real unity, the real salvation that comes from the pilgrimage to Mecca. Betty Shabazz said that we made the Nation of Islam look too good.

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Persons: ANTHONY I, Mary MacArthur, Malcolm X, Eric Bogosian, THULANI, Anthony, Malcolm, CHRISTOPHER, Thulani, Reginald, “, Betty Shabazz Locations: Malcolm, Mecca