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Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(ENTERTAINMENT--THEATER.) Pair of programs for a Carnegie Hall performance of Louis Farrakhan's Orgena. 2 printed items, 9 x 6 and 10 x 7¼ inches; minimal wear. New York, 24 December 1960
Orgena ("A Negro" spelled backwards) was a musical theater written and performed by Nation of Islam member Louis X, formerly known as Gene Walcott and soon to become better known as Louis Farrakhan. This lot contains two programs for Orgena's Carnegie Hall performance: a 4-page program produced by Louis X's mosque, and a 20-page program produced by Carnegie Hall consisting mostly of advertisements reaching the wrong audience (many of the evening's crowd would have viewed bourbon and cognac as haram).
The main program is headed "The Black Muslims of Muhammad's Mosque No. 7 present Orgena." It includes a full page of background on Orgena, and a full page of biography on Louis X. On the rear page are invitations to attend the mosque and listen to Elijah Muhammad's radio program. The program explains that "When Louis X accepted the religion of Islam, he made a vow that he would never appear on the stage again unless it would be beneficial to his downtrodden people." Orgena had debuted in Boston in January 1960, had previously been performed in Philadelphia and Chicago, and was on its way to Detroit. "The first segment of Orgena depicts the ancestral background of the (so-called) Negro, his fall into slavery and the social degeneration which followed and finally his desire to discover the roots of his beginning. The second segment features 'The Trial,' which depicts the day of reckoning for those who have enslaved and tortured the peoples of earth."
The more generic official Carnegie Hall program dispenses with the background, but does include the schedule of the performance. The intermission was by the Shabazz Jazz-Tette, and the five original songs performed by Louis X are listed.
An adaptation of a speech from "The Trial" portion of Orgena opens Spike Lee's biopic "Malcolm X": "I charge the white man with being the greatest murderer on earth. . . "
