Political statements can blindside a majority of the population, but only because nobody is looking. They are anywhere from a political slogan plastered on lawns, signs on the highway, all the way to an original performance piece at Sacramento State.

April 3 and 4 Sons/Ancestors Players club [SAP] at Sac State performed “On My Mind,” a series of three performance plays: “5150,” “Invisible Illness” and “#BlackLivesMatter.” All three pieces had one thing in common: showing strong political statements through the art of theater and African-American cultures while incorporating what’s going on in the world and why it needs to be addressed.

“I feel like the majority of my life has been a political statement so it kind of fits right in with my agenda,” said SAP member Laila Shabazz. “I feel like this particular political statement about blackness and mental health is very necessary in this day and age, so I advocate for the political side of our work.”

SAP is one of the oldest African-American theater groups that was originated on Sac State’s campus in the 1970s.

SAP concentrates on enriching the black experience and strengthening it though theater, creating different perspective on the world and what different cultures go through on a daily basis, as well as expand people’s worldview.

“I think it [SAP] promotes just learning about the black experience, just being able to see visually like what might go on in the black community, but also engaging the whole community, even people who aren’t black to be able to understand and act in it too,” said SAP vice president and treasurer Jannah Neal. “You don’t have to be black to be in SAP.“

President of SAP Ashlee Woods says when she first joined the club her freshman year there was a diverse group of people from all ethnicities, and it brought many different views because although they focus on the black experience they are not closed off to other cultures, but rather embrace them.

“I’m grateful for this club because I am a very, very shy person freshmen year, I pretty much stayed in my dorm, so without this group I would never […] have talked to anyone,” said Woods. “It’s just an experience, it breaks you out of your comfort zone.”

SAP is also a part of a program Every Given Child, where they go to elementary schools around Sacramento and perform for children, doing on average six performances per semester.

“[…] It is an initiative to get arts back into the schools,” said Neal. “So it’s like really cool for me to be able to go to elementary schools throughout Sacramento and show up as a black woman and be able to act African-American folk tales in front of groups of people, because I feel like that in itself is a political statement.”

SAP welcomes all students; the club isn’t just for theater majors or minors, but anybody interested in music, drawing, costume design, poetry, writing and any creative art form.

Shabazz, a kinesiology major and dance minor, started on the stage in “5150,” written and directed by SAP’s faculty advisor Melinda Wilson Ramey.

Being her first experience in a theater play, the emotion and power in her body and voice took control of the stage, her presence capturing what it was like for a black woman to be put in a mental institution by the police under the psychiatric holding law 5150.

Shabazz danced with grace but with utter passion to “Salvation Don’t Come Cheap,” choreographed by Linda S. Goodrich.

“[…] I feel really accomplished, the play itself was a very powerful experience for me, being organized and directed and choreographed by all black women is not really something that I had been exposed to for a lot of my life,” said Shabazz. “So that was very humbling and inspiring for me, to be able to like personify and share with the world my experiences with mental health. […] I definitely feel like I got something accomplished, like I told people about something. I feel like I did what I was supposed to do in this creation.”

“Invisible Illness,” directed and written by Neal, is about a young black woman starting off her college life that has been recently diagnosed with lupus, an immune deficiency disease that attacks the body through autoantibodies.

“Being able to express yourself through art in a theatrical way is pretty cool, its like kind of humbling and also opens up your mind and soul in a way, you kind of feel vulnerable after you’re in a play,” said Neal. “[…] It’s kind of in a healing process almost.”

“#BlackLivesMatter,” written and directed by SAP members Kristen James, Kendall Roberts, Neal, Woods and Shabazz, focused on police brutality, touching on Ferguson and how the media gave us one video while other people who were there had a completely different video, showing the public the other side to the spectrum.

They stressed the importance of all black lives, black women, men, queers and transgender, and how the police, media and society treat them.

The 30-minute show gave insight into another worldview, a view that isn’t seen by everybody but exploited by many. SAP was able to do exactly what they set out to do every time they’re on stage, to show people the experiences they face culturally and ethnically and what is on their mind.

“If you want to make a difference join SAP,” said Neal.