[In the review below, Barnes outlines the political message of "Slave Ship," and praises Baraka's provocative delivery of his black militant outlook.]

LeRoi Jones's new play, "Slave Ship," … raises for a white critic somber and awful problems. It is a strong, strange play that once seen will never be forgotten. But to regard it simply as a work of art and to sidestep nimbly its implications would be nothing but dishonest.

This is a propaganda play. It is a black militant play. It is a racist play. It purports to counsel black revolution. It is a "get whitey" play. Its attitudes are ugly and prejudiced, and its airily total condemnation of the white American is as sick as a Ku Klux Klanner at a rally.

To an extent it is a celebration of the death of white liberalism. Some people might see in it a hymn to the assassination of Martin Luther King's moderation, for it is also a sad celebration of the death of black liberalism. The play says to hell with moderation—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—away with the idea of a black man being a white man who has had an unfortunate accident in the color of his skin, and burn, baby, burn.

Were I black I would, I think, be militant. But I am not black, and my concerns are for justice, not revenge. Every white man, every black man, seeing this play is forced to look at himself very carefully in the mirror of his heart.

Is black racism less reprehensible than white racism? You cannot possibly see "Slave Ship" without confronting this question, for it is a play that is as much a political statement as a work of art. What are you going to choose?

If you are like me you will perhaps decide that black racism is less reprehensible because it is more understandable. To be brought to a country as a fettered slave is very different from arriving as even the poorest immigrant.

Also, black racism is perhaps a taken affair. It may be part of the business of establishing racial pride. The shooting that this play clearly advocates has luckily not yet started. If it ever does then we will all have decisions to make far more important than the consideration of a play.

Mr. Jones is a clumsy, fantastically gifted playwright. I understand his political concerns, but, as a drama critic rather than a man, I cannot but observe wryly that if he could spare the time and energy to the business he could be a most unusual playwright.

"Slave Ship" is riveting. But it is riveting on two accounts for its deliberately segregated audience. The whites feel shame, compassion and that kind of pointless guilt that can have no absolution because it has no cause. The blacks—and here I am guessing—feel shame, compassion and a certain self-righteous satisfaction in the discomfiture of whitey. It is—ritually turning the other cheek—their all too civil right.

The play is set in the hold of a ship and the conscience of a nation. We see the slaves, chained, humiliated, treated like animals, behaving like animals, being brought in long and tortuous pain to America. We witness—painfully and, yes exhaustingly witness—their degradation.

Mr. Jones, helped by the emphatically realistic staging of Gilbert Moses and the violently brilliant acting of the cast, has already made his point. And what follows is almost a predictable extension of his basic theme of slavery.

Using a very free-styled theatrical form, he shows African tribal vignettes, a coon-like Uncle Tom, a black uprising and a very telling scene suggesting the rejection of Christianity. The play ends with the symbolic destruction of white America. Whitey is got—black panther banners are unfurled. This scared and horrified me. I am whitey.

The play looks as if it has been thrown together like a casual omelette. Yet Mr. Jones's command of the medium and control of his craft is sufficient to insure that although the play is artistically as ragged as burlap, it remains remarkably effective. But I wonder whether he worries about its artistic effectiveness.

Mr. Jones is a poet of politics. I would like to call him brother, but I am too smart to be that presumptuous. Are we all, including Mr. Jones, going to be too smart? Peace "Slave Ship"—do your thing.