Black Nativity

Black Nativity premiered Off-Broadway in 1961 as a way to give Black people their own holiday tradition at a time when The Nutcracker and Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol were as white as yuletide snow. Then in 1970, Hughes’s friend John Ross, the music director at the Elma Lewis School of  Fine Arts, brought it to Roxbury.

From there, Black Nativity has returned year after year, most recently at ArtsEmerson’s Paramount Center. Generations of  Black Bostonians have performed in it and passed on the tradition. For example, the first infant to play baby Jesus, Ron Collier, is now in charge of stage management and has put his children through the show. The continuity and history have been crucial, says music teacher Betty Hillmon, who as registrar manages the kids in the production: “It’s hard being in a Black community where you didn’t have access to other activities that were shining—I mean, we’ve had Symphony Hall for over 100 years—but we weren’t in them. What Black Nativity has done for children and adults is give them a feeling of pride, and it keeps them united.”