Billie Holiday, her rendition of “You Don’t Know What Love Is” and Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong are referenced early in the play. One could argue that a key element of music originating from African American culture is the idea of loving through loss and struggle. Whether that is a divine love expressed in early spirituals and gospels, or a love of freedom expressed in work songs, or love of self and others expressed in the Blues, or love for invention shown in Jazz, a profound knowledge of love comes from an understanding of despair and loss, yet an ultimate hope for the future.

Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and many other Jazz musicians would had been seen regularly in Harlem since it was a cultural hub with several popular venues within walking distance of each other. Musicians like Billie Holiday were also pressing social change through their art form. She was very well-known for works like “Strange Fruit” written by Jewish teacher and writer Lewis Allan and performed for decades until her death in 1959. The song called attention to lynchings and violence against Black people in an unflinching way. Music was also used throughout the centuries to motivate resistance. In the play King references “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around” as a retort to Malcolm’s criticism of him.

The play is set in a room on the top floor of the tallest building in Harlem. In 1965 that would have been the Hotel Theresa. Located at 125th & 7th Avenue, it was called the Waldorf of Harlem. This pale terra cotta building dominated the landscape and a was premier hotel for white people before the Great Migration to Harlem and right through a portion of the Jazz era and Harlem Renaissance. Although Harlem’s population was 70% Black by the 1930’s, Black people could not stay in the Hotel Theresa until the 1940’s.

African American entertainers, celebrities, dignitaries, political, religious and social leaders, even gangsters and criminal elements stayed there and lived in its apartments. It was a popular and beloved location, albeit dilapidated by the early 1960’s, with bar, restaurant, boutique, and ballroom.

A. Phillip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, King and other leaders met in the Hotel Theresa to plan the March on Washington. Malcolm X’s Muslim Mosque, Inc and the Organization of Afro-American Unity was housed there. King had been stabbed in 1958 at a book signing a short walk from this hotel. Malcolm X and other street orators often held open rallies at the intersection of 125th and 7th Avenues outside of Hotel Theresa.

By 1965, fewer people stayed there and by 1967 it was closed. Today the building still stands as an office building across from an impressive statue of Adam Clayton Powell.

The Nation of Islam is a religious group founded in Detroit in 1930. Elijah Muhammad was its leader from 1934 until his death in 1975. He was considered a messenger of Allah by his followers. Malcolm X converted to the Nation of Islam while he was incarcerated at 22 years-old. Elijah Muhammad became a mentor and teacher to him early on and he joined the Nation upon his parole.

The Nation of Islam grew quickly in membership in the 50’s. Due in part to Malcolm X’s recruitment of followers. He had become a national spokesperson and a minister of Temple #7 located in Harlem. Some Black people were attracted to the NOI’s language of self-determination, dignity, discipline and self-defense. It was one of the largest Black organizations involved in the freedom struggle that was financially self-sufficient and was not monetarily reliant on white organizations or donors to operate.

The NOI was considered a potentially violent organization by the media, government and some Black civil rights organizers as their views were perceived as strident. This perception was bolstered by the FBI’s message that the NOI had a “predilection for violence, preaching of race hatred, and hypocrisy.”

One of the first mainstream views into NOI practices was in a Gordon Parks Life Magazine article. In 1963, Malcolm X allowed Black photographer and writer Gordon Parks to visit temples, trainings and homes of NOI members.

Malcolm’s relationship with NOI faltered when he learned of his mentor’s sexual misconduct with his young secretaries. This coupled with conflicts over public statements by Malcolm X led to Malcolm’s suspension from NOI duties. By 1964 he departed the Nation of Islam.

J. Edgar Hoover was the director of the FBI for eight different presidents from 1924 until his death in 1972. Under his directorship, the FBI’s information-gathering and investigation tactics included some questionable and illegal methods.

According to the final report of the Church Committee, a 1975 Senate committee charged with investigating abuses by the FBI, CIA, NSA, and IRS, “From ‘late 1963’ until his death in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the target of an intensive campaign by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to ‘neutralize’ him as an effective civil rights leader. In the words of the man in charge of the FBI's ‘war’ against Dr. King, ‘No holds were barred.’” This campaign included wiretapping King’s hotel rooms in efforts to expose alleged extramarital affairs.

Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam were also targets of FBI surveillance. According to the Church Committee report, the FBI wanted to promote the message that the Nation of Islam had a “predilection for violence, preaching of race hatred and hypocrisy.” The report continues, “Although the public was to be convinced that the NOI was ‘violent’, the Bureau knew this was not in fact true of the organization as a whole.”

Attallah Shabazz lost her father to assassination when he was 39 years-old. Yolanda King lost her father a few years later when he was also 39 years-old. These daughters of el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz and Betty Shabazz and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King grew up to become friends and creative partners.

In the 1980’s the two young women co-wrote a play called Stepping into Tomorrow, then they toured and went on speaking engagements. Their efforts developed into Nucleus Theatre. Their primary goal was to educate and uplift youth. They went on to co-author another play in which they imagine what would have happened if their fathers had been able to live. Their collaboration lasted for 12 years.