Sun Ra and 1960s Social Work: Afrofuturist Visions of Liberation and Divergent Strategies of Realization

Background and Purpose: The 1960s were a vital decade for both the Black Power movement (Bell, 2014) and Sun Ra’s Afrofuturist Arkestra (Sites, 2020) to advance their visions of liberation. The Black Power movement and the Civil Rights act enabled thousands of Black Americans to advance social justice through the social work profession (Bell, 2014). Around the same time, Sun Ra engaged in community-based practices of lectures, poetry, and creative musical performances to address the racial trauma that afflicted Black America (Sites, 2020). Social work can draw from the creativity and imagination of key Afrofuturist figures (Dove, 2023). This study seeks to answer: how did the vision and strategies from Sun Ra’s lectures and prose contrast with those of Black social workers of the same era?

Methods: This historical study drew from primary archival sources from The University of Chicago’s Alton Abraham Collection of Sun Ra. This project contrasted Sun Ra’s lectures, poetry, and prose in the 1950s and 60s with statements from 1960s Black social work groups. Secondary data from Joyce Bell’s The Black Power Movement and American Social Work (2014) detailed the activities and motivations of Black social work groups and the Black Power movement in the 1960s. Secondary data from the National Association of Black Social Worker’s website and William Sites’ Sun Ra’s Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City (2020) provided additional context.

Results: Sun Ra and 1960s Black social work groups both invoked dream imagery to convey their visions of the future. Whereas the National Association of Black Social Workers called for Black liberation, racial equity, and improved human service delivery (NABSW, n.d.), Sun Ra dreamt of space travel and interdimensional spiritual salvation (Sites, 2020). Their diverging visions and understandings of social problems shaped their strategies for addressing them. Black social workers sought to combat racism and promote equitable service delivery through New Deal federal antipoverty programs (Bell, 2014). Sun Ra saw social problems as impossible, and argued traditional approaches were futile (Ra, 1970). Sun Ra’s rejected racial categorizations and distrusted predominant Black political institutions for failing to promote an appreciation of beauty (Ra, ca. 1950s). For Sun Ra, musical beauty was not merely aesthetic but a vehicle for transcending to alternate planes of reality (Ra, ca. 1960s), exemplified by his 1967 album Cosmic tones for mental therapy.

Conclusions and Implications: Sun Ra did not disparage social justice efforts of the 1960s but provided alternative conceptualizations and practices for realization. Black social workers fought on pragmatic grounds, targeting racism in public policy and the administration of federal social service programs, achieving Black representation and empowerment in key social service sectors. Sun Ra’s claims of interdimensional travel may seem outlandish, though decades later, clinical researchers have linked free jazz improvisation with experiences of mystical attunement and interconnectedness with the cosmos (Borgo, 2003; Kossak, 2008). Mystical experiences have demonstrated therapeutic value in religious (James, 1902) and psychedelic treatment settings (Barrett & Griffiths, 2018). Sun Ra’s Afrofuturist writings challenge conventional ontological assumptions and promote sonic spiritual therapies to facilitate liberation.