Sun Ra - space-age prophet, Pharonic jester, shaman-philosopher and avant-jazz keyboardist/bandleader - lands his spaceship, having been presumed lost in space for a few years. With Black Power on the rise, Ra disembarks and proclaims himself 'the alter-destiny'. Ra holds a myth-vs-reality rap session with black youth at an Oakland youth club, threatening to "chain you up like they did in Africa" if they resist his plea to go to outer space with him. Ra duels with a pimp-overlord at cards, the fate of the black race at stake.
Like Ra himself, Space is the Place is a one of a kind: part Blaxploitation film, and all polemic parable - a mythopoetic manifesto, made by people who believed in Ra's mystical message as much as they appreciated his Afro-psychedelica.