If you’re looking to engage a white audience in Black Lives Matter conversations… consider this heartbreaking yet love-filled family portrait. This play was “the first attempt to use the stage for race propaganda in order to enlighten the [white] American people relative to the lamentable condition of the millions of Colored citizens in this free republic,” according to the program for the first production in NYC in 1916. Rachel, a young Black woman in love, wonders if she could endure having kids of her own given the racism she and the children in her neighborhood face everyday. Though certainly a tragedy, this play also shows Black love and Black joy in this historically important piece.
This episode is hosted by Mary Candler and Shanon Corenthin, and the scene is performed by Jamal James and Samanthia Nixon.
