The Mojo And The Sayso: Summary

In the early 1970s, a black 10-year-old named Clifford Glover was shot by a plainclothes police officer while walking near his home in Queens. The officer was cleared of any wrongdoing, and it was only after three years that the New York City police department paid his mother reparations for wrongful death. Days later, it was discovered that Mrs. Glover had been swindled by her church minister into giving over the reparations check, after which the minister disappeared from the city with the money. This real-life story inspired Aishah Rahman’s play The Mojo and the Sayso, and it is easy to see why. The story of Clifford Glover’s death and the consequences creates the perfect tragedy - so perfect, in fact, that one has to question why Rahman chose to fictionalize reality into something more hopeful. The answer to this question is simple: Rahman’s goal isn’t to write a Shakespearean tragedy, but rather to “create a form of theater in which the experience and cultural styles of African Americans could somehow coalesce.” By combining African American spirituality and culture with a contemporary tragedy, Aishah Rahman crafts a modern …show more content…
This engages with the Nommo concept of language and sound having power. It is significant to note that Acts isn’t able to tell the truth immediately, but he finds the strength through the encouragement of his wife and stepson. Thus the communal aspect of Nommo is combined with the verbal aspect, and all three of them are able to purge themselves of their false mojos. With their purposes combined and their demons out in the open, they are able to use Acts’ mojo not as the wall that he had been using it as before, but as a vehicle to drive them towards a better future. Thus, despite the darkness of the story, the ending is one of