The Good Negro at The Public Theater

When the economy is down the revival flourishes on Broadway: Hair, West Side Story, South Pacific, Blithe Spirit, Guys and Dolls, Hedda Gabler, even Mamma Mia! With 9 to 5 about to go into preview, there isn't much serious theater left: August: Osage County, God of Carnage, 33 Variations, Impressionism, and reasons to be pretty.

And there is The Good Negro at The Public Theater. After years of subscribing to a variety of theater companies, some of which have been ruined by over-expansion into Broadway houses and therefore losing their edge, I find that The Public Theater maintains principles of drama, with just enough discomfort to work through the sophistication of the New York audience. There isn't much Iowa visiting at The Public.

The play is a revival from the Public's earlier Lab production. It was written by a talented and complex playwright, Tracey Scott Wilson, the first in a trilogy of historical plays. The next will be about the Black Panthers. This one is set in Birmingham, Alabama in 1962 and is a fictionalized version of the young and emerging leader Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. with all of his flaws, because what makes this play so enormously interesting is Wilson's insistence that she portray icons as people trying desperately to live up to their ideals.

It isn't Rosa Parks, the perfect Negro, to start the Birmingham bus boycott that launched Rev. King's career. Instead it is the arrest of a four year old girl and her mother for using the "whites only" bathroom in a department store when the "coloreds only" was broken. The arrest of this fine and furious woman, Claudette Sullivan, played by Joniece Abbott-Pratt, sets off an opportunity for national leadership for Rev. Jimmy Lawrence, by Curtis McClarin, and his fellow preacher Henry Evans, by J. Bernard Calloway. Both men give superb performances with all of the glitter of Southern preaching. Rev. Jimmy's long-suffering wife is played by Rachel Nicks who is so beautiful and graceful that we will be seeing her in many more plays. The community organizer, a European, college educated Negro, Bill Rutherford, by Curtis McClarin, is effete, doesn't know how to sing or pray, but brings the technical knowledge of organizing to Birmingham. One thinks of Bayard Ruskin and his role in the Birmingham bus boycott.

And then there are the two FBI agents, "the old man" aka J. Edgar Hoover and his obsession to link the Civil Rights movement to Russia and to discredit its leaders through illegal wiretaps and rumors of sexual promiscuity. There is the Klan and its infiltrator, and there is violence.

The second act is too long, it gets fragmented as it tries to resolve all of the points it wants to make, but this is a worthy play, beautifully acted, with a glimpse into the courage, fear, and frailty of those men and women who withstood fire hoses, unemployment, intimidation, and multiple arrests so that their children might be free.

I Have a Dream -- MLK and Tomorrow's Ironies

Tomorrow Barack Hussein Obama will take the oath of office on the West side of the Capitol, often called the "Temple of Freedom," which was built by enslaved people. The 19 foot high Statue of Freedom on top of the Capitol was forged in bronze by Philip Reid when he was still a slave, but hoisted on top of the Capitol dome after he had been freed in 1862 by the Emancipation Proclamation.

Today is the official day of celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, a day after delivering his last speech: "I've Been to the Mountaintop." Today I listened to Justin James Gietschier, a fifth grader, deliver that speech with surprising passion to an audience of several hundred at our local MLK celebration lunch. We rose to our feet and wildly applauded his oratory. Justin wants to become a baseball player and a preacher! He has dreams because of Dr. King. He has dreams because of Barack Obama. He didn't know it, but he has dreams because of Joseph McNeil.

A special civil rights award was given today to Joseph McNeil. He told the story of driving around the back roads of North Carolina with his father delivering auto parts. Back then in the 1950s, he was acutely aware that in addition to being required to eat in separate restaurants, use different toilets, and drink from separate water fountains, Mr. McNeil and his father could be lynched.

When he was seventeen years old, Joseph McNeil enrolled in North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, an historically Black college in Greensboro. During his freshman year, he and three of his friends engaged in an act of defiance: they sat at the lunch counter of the local Woolworth's and ordered apple pie and coffee. They weren't served that day. Their act of defiance continued. The next day 25 students entered the Woolworth's and went to the lunch counter. They weren't served. By day four there were 125 students, and within days, there were boycotts of Woolworth's across the south.

The Greensboro Four began their acts of defiance on February 1, 1960.

An interview with Joseph McNeil can be seen and read here.

Mr. McNeil went on to the Air Force where he helped diversify the American military.

These acts of defiance were done without ever believing that anything other than arrest would result. So the thankfulness and joy that infused Mr. McNeil's acceptance speech today was felt throughout the room. We all sat there--men and women of good will, of all colors, ages, nationalities--rejoicing in a hope that American democracy might be revitalized under the leadership of President Obama. If his presidency is anything like his political campaign, he might once again bring out the best in Americans. Barack Obama is showing us what we might be if we engage in civic life, something beyond shopping and passively watching television.

CNN posted an interesting poll today. 69% of African Americans polled believe that Dr. King's dream has been fulfilled. That number is astounding, and reflects the great hope and pride Obama's election has brought. Whites are not so optimistic. Only 46% of whites who were polled agreed.

That made me optimistic. I believe the difference in the polling is the recognition whites have that indeed America remains a racist country, that too many opportunities are available based on race, and more importantly, a recognition by whites of the racist feelings we might still harbor.

It's only when we feel vulnerable that we are capable of seeing ourselves for who we are--flawed and fragile--and not who we think we are.

This is our moment when most everyone feels vulnerable to uncertainty, financial chaos, and the potential for war. This is our time to be defiant: to face our history, to face our worst so that we can become our best.