Plot and Creation: X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X

Original libretto by Thulani Davis, based on a story by Christopher Davis

X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X is not based on any single text or other source. Though the libretto was written by Thulani Davis, Anthony Davis’s cousin, the story for the opera was crafted by Christopher Davis, the composer’s brother. An actor and director, Christopher played the titular role in N. R. Davidson’s play El Hajj Malik: A Play About Malcolm X in the early 1970s. Davidson wrote the play in the late 1960s, and it premiered in 1969 with the Dashiki Project Theater, a theater group he co-founded in New Orleans. Over the next several years, Davidson toured the work across the United States, including in New Haven, Connecticut, and Jamaica, Queens, where Davis performed in the play. The text of El Hajj Malik was largely based on two sources, Alex Haley’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) and Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements (1965), edited by George Breitman. Like Robert O’Hara’s new staging of Davis’s opera, Davidson’s play approached Malcolm X as an “Everyman.” The script of El Hajj Malik does not designate separate characters but instead an ensemble of 11 actors who all take turns portraying the protagonist at different points in his life across a single performance. Inspired by his turn in El Hajj Malik, Christopher Davis encouraged his brother to set Malcolm’s life to music and provided the narrative outline for Thulani Davis’s libretto.

Act I

Lansing, Michigan, 1931.

At the home of Reverend Earl Little, his wife Louise, and their four children, followers of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association gather for a meeting. As attendees listen to a recruiter for Garvey’s Black Star Line, they express excitement about moving to Africa and hail Garvey as a prophet. Meanwhile, Louise anxiously awaits the return of Earl, who is late to the meeting. She fears that he has been harmed, noting that the Ku Klux Klan burned down their previous home shortly after Malcolm’s birth. A policeman enters to announce that Earl has been killed in a streetcar accident. Some at the meeting suggest that white men pushed Earl onto the tracks. Louise collapses as if in a daze, her children unable to reach her. A white social worker arrives, accusing the Little family of neglect. She commands the children to be taken by foster care as Malcolm calls to his mother for help. His older sister Ella arrives and takes Malcolm into her custody. 

Boston, Massachusetts, about 1940.

Ella comforts Malcolm and introduces him to “the Hill,” an upwardly mobile, middle-class Black neighborhood. She lets Malcolm explore the city, and he wanders into a pool room. There, he is spotted by Street, who recognizes Malcolm as an outsider from the country. Having also migrated to the city, Street introduces Malcolm to “the life” by bringing him to a big band ballroom and showing him how to act cool, dress well, work for himself, and toughen up. Malcolm picks up Sweetheart and leads her to the dancefloor, where a blonde woman cruises him. Street convinces Malcolm to pull off a heist. They leave and emerge with silver, furs, and other goods as a crowd gathers to buy items. Police officers enter with clubs, breaking up the crowd and arresting Malcolm, Street, and the blonde.  

An interrogation room.

Malcolm appears, handcuffed in a chair under a glaring light. He speaks—perhaps to interrogators, perhaps to no one—recalling how white supremacist violence has always followed him. He resolves to bear the power of his truth against evil.

Act II

Prison. 1946-48.

Reginald Little comes to visit his older brother in jail, encouraging him to turn to the Muslim faith and the Nation of Islam.

1952.

Malcolm begins to accept the idea of conversion as the voice of Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam, is heard offstage. They meet, and Malcolm changes his last name to “X,” signifying his lost African origins and acting as a placeholder for his future God-given name. Elijah shows him how to pray in the manner of the Nation of Islam: standing, palms out, facing East. They embrace.

1954-63.

On 125th Street in Harlem, Malcolm encounters a woman street preacher trying to convince passersby to adopt Afrocentric principles. Next, a Garveyite preacher advocates Black Americans returning to Africa. Malcolm stands back and watches, almost derisively, waiting for his turn. He gets up and starts speaking. Soon thereafter he begins traveling the country, leading rallies and founding temples in Boston, Philadelphia, Springfield, Hartford, Atlanta, and New York. Before a large crowd, he lays out his agenda for pan-African Black liberation. Alongside Malcolm, Elijah, Reginald, and Malcolm’s wife Betty, Muslims gather at a mosque to espouse Black nationalist ideas. During this period, Malcolm oversees organizing activities for the Nation of Islam. As news swirls of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, reporters swarm Elijah asking for comment, but he rebuffs them. They then turn to Malcolm, who states that President Kennedy’s death was the foreseeable consequence of America’s violent culture. Elijah disavows Malcolm for having disobeyed his command not to talk about the president or his death, which he fears would make more enemies of the Nation of Islam.

Act III

1963.

Malcolm meets with Elijah, who confronts him for having gone against his command by making a statement about JFK’s assassination. He suspects that Malcolm has grown too popular for the Nation of Islam, and Malcolm questions if he has been sabotaged, suggesting that perhaps Elijah does not obey his own laws. Elijah commands that Malcolm does not speak publicly, to which he agrees and leaves. Malcolm’s wife Betty comforts him as he grows weary from increasing media attention and political turmoil within the Nation of Islam. He embraces Betty and their daughters, and she encourages him to make the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca. In Cairo, while on the Hajj, Malcolm abandons Western clothing for the simple white cloth of a pilgrim. A call to prayer is heard, and a group of Muslims begin to pray. Malcolm tries to follow the prayer but does not know the orthodox prayer ritual. As he watches those around him, he begins to emulate their movements. Having received his new name, el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, he kneels and prays.

1964-65.

In Harlem, a white police officer accuses a young Black man of theft. Onlookers get involved as the boy tries to escape. The police officer shoots the young man, and the crowd turns on him as a riot breaks out. When Malcolm returns from his pilgrimage, flanked by allies in African and Muslim garb, he is mobbed by reporters—still addressing him by his former name—who ask him about the events in Harlem. He corrects them, reiterating that the violence of American culture leads to more violence. Malcolm meets with his allies in a hotel room, detailing his plans and espousing a philosophy of self-defense and solidarity among all people of color around the globe. Though he learns of frequent threats to his life, he remains resolute in his faith that the Black liberation struggle will continue and succeed—even if he is killed. A large crowd assembles at a meeting of Malcolm’s newly founded Organization of Afro-American Unity, a secular pan-Africanist group. As Malcolm prepares to give a speech, his close allies try to prevent him from doing so, fearing for his safety. Despite their cautions, he makes his way to the stage and takes his place at the podium. There is a scuffle in the audience as three men appear with guns. They rise and shoot Malcolm.

1948
Thulani Davis is born on May 22 in Hampton, Virginia. Both of her parents are educators at the Hampton Institute (now Hampton University), a historically Black college.

1951
Anthony Davis is born on February 20 in Paterson, New Jersey. His father is Charles T. Davis, a literary scholar and the first Black faculty member to earn tenure at the Pennsylvania State University, where he founded the African American studies program. He would later become the first Black professor to teach at Princeton University and go on to serve as director of Afro-American Studies at Yale University, where he was also the first African American to be granted tenure in the English department.

1970
Thulani Davis graduates from Barnard College with a degree in English. She moves to San Francisco shortly thereafter and joins the Third World Artists Collective, enabling her to collaborate with Ntozake Shange and other writers associated with the Black Arts Movement.

1975
Anthony Davis graduates with a degree in philosophy from Yale University, where he is first exposed to opera through a concert performance of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck. Due to Yale’s curricular focus on European classical music, he travels to Wesleyan University to study South Indian music and Indonesian gamelan.

1979
Thulani Davis begins working at The Village Voice, where she serves as proofreader, writer, and editor until 1990.

1981
Anthony Davis forms the free-jazz ensemble Episteme, an outlet for him to explore the role of composition in improvisatory music.

1984
The first workshop for X, the Life and Times of Malcolm X takes place at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia. Davis writes the first act for his ten-piece Episteme ensemble.

1985
The first full version of X is workshopped at Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia.

1986
X, the Life and Times of Malcolm X premieres at New York City Opera. Anthony Davis’s Episteme forms an improvisatory ensemble within the orchestra. The performances sell out despite largely critical reviews, with The New York Times writing that “Mr. Davis and his collaborators want to give words and ideology, not vocalism, the center of attention in this work.”

1989
Anthony Davis’s second opera, Under the Double Moon, a work of science fiction with an original libretto by Deborah Atherton, premieres at Opera Theatre of St. Louis.

1992
Anthony Davis’s third opera Tania, a largely comic work about the kidnapping of Patty Hearst with a libretto by Michael John LaChiusa, premieres at the American Music Theater Festival.

1993
Anthony Davis composes incidental music for the Broadway production of Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play Angels in America, directed by George C. Wolfe.

Thulani Davis wins the Grammy Award for Best Album Notes for an Aretha Franklin boxed set, The Atlantic Recordings, becoming the first woman to win in this category. She also publishes Malcolm X: The Great Photographs and contributes the libretto for Anne LeBaron’s electronic opera The E&O Line, based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.

The 1992 recording of X, now out of print, receives a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Composition.

1997
Anthony Davis’s fourth opera Amistad, about the famous 1839 slave ship rebellion, premieres at Lyric Opera of Chicago with a libretto by Thulani Davis and directed by George C. Wolfe.

1998
Anthony Davis joins the faculty of the University of California San Diego, where he is currently Distinguished Professor and Cecil Lytle Chancellor’s Endowed Chair in African and African-American Music.

Thulani Davis contributes the libretto for composer Miya Masaoka’s multimedia oratorio Dark Passages. The same year she is inducted into the Black Writers Hall of Fame.

2007
Anthony Davis’s fifth opera Wakonda’s Dream, with a libretto by poet Yusef Komunyakaa, premieres at Opera Omaha.

2008
Anthony Davis receives the “Lift Every Voice” Legacy Award from the National Opera Association acknowledging his pioneering work in opera. A heavily revised version of Amistad premiers at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina.

2009
Anthony Davis’s chamber opera Lilith, with a libretto by Allan Havis, premieres at the Conrad Prebys Music Center at UC San Diego.

2013
Anthony Davis’s seventh opera Lear on the 2nd Floor, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear with a libretto by Allan Havis, premieres at the Conrad Prebys Music Center Concert Hall at UC San Diego.

2019
Anthony Davis’s eighth opera The Central Park Five, about the wrongful conviction of five Black men for the rape of a white woman in New York City, premieres at the Long Beach Opera with a libretto by Richard Wesley.

2020
The Central Park Five wins the Pulitzer Prize for music. The committee calls it “a courageous operatic work, marked by powerful vocal writing and sensitive orchestration, that skillfully transforms a notorious example of contemporary injustice into something empathetic and hopeful.”

2022
A revised version of X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X premieres at Detroit Opera in a production directed by Robert O’Hara before moving to Opera Omaha.

2023
X premieres at the Metropolitan Opera after further expansion and revision, with future performances at Seattle Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Thulani Davis is currently writing the libretto for a new opera by Bernadette Speech, The Little Rock Nine, about the Black students who integrated an Arkansas high school in 1957. She and Anthony Davis are also collaborating on a new opera, Greenwood, 1921, about the Tulsa race riots.