Where there is a Black power movement, there is a Black arts movement. Black arts movements shape the course of the diasporic narrative and reclaim the vitality and dignity of Blackness by critiquing colonial and racist ideologies that distort African history and identity. Born out of the global Black Arts Movement and student protests at Brown University, Rites and Reason theatre was founded in the fall of 1970 by professor, and playwright, George H. Bass. Rites and Reason theatre is a research-based theatre that creates original productions that analyze and articulate the vast diasporic experiences of blackness. This work highlights Rites and Reason theatre as a movement grounded in political and intellectual bursts of energy that has been able to influence, sustain and dismantle ideologies and change the campus culture of Brown University.
