FREEDOM HIGH
BY ADAM KRAAR
HENRY, 26, an African-American man, has been working for the civil rights movement for the past three years. Although training the volunteers at a college in Ohio, HE struggles with doubts about the project. HE’s also grieving over his brother, who was severely beaten by white racists. In this speech, HENRY opens up to Jessica, a young white volunteer with whom HE’s become involved.
SCENE
The front seat of Jessica’s car, parked in a lot at Western College in Ohio
TIME
Summer 1964
HENRY: You don’t! Just shut it. You don’t understand. . . . See . . . before they got to my brother, they had me. I was canvassing some farmers outside town, and took a shortcut through the woods. Suddenly I was surrounded by the . . . reddest of rednecks I ever seen. They were pink with anger, ‘cause they heard some Freedom Niggers were talkin’ to their colored folk. Five of ‘em, with bicycle chains and a big pipe. One of ’em had this big wad of pink bubble gum he kept poppin’.
(Pause.)
So you know what I did? Jessica? I pretended like I was somebody’s cousin, like I was just some sharecropper, payin’ a visit from the next county. Started sayin’ all this bull jive like . . . “No, suh, I, I, I don’t want to get involved in no politics. My family’s a good family, we works for Mr. Reed over in Florence, Mr. Reed good to us, we never want no trouble, no suh!” I’m bowin’ and movin’ my head around like a wooden puppet, and cryin’ . . .
(Pause.)
I’d been beaten before, shot at, jailed in the night. But somethin’ happened that day. . . . Suddenly, didn’t wanna die, not like that. They bought my story, and let me go, with just a kick to my pants. But later, those crackers find out who I really am, and come after me. They come to Mabley, and grab my brother off the street. Friend of the family saw it. “We know who you are, nigger. You takin’ a ride with us.”
Thought he was me!
GAP
BY CAROL LASHOF
AARON, a high school senior with focus issues, addresses his teachers regarding his difficulties with his studies despite his best efforts, especially regarding the dreaded homework.
SCENE
A large public high school in a progressive American city
TIME
The present
AARON: Dear teachers: This is the beginning of my last year of high school. I would like it to be wonderful. More likely it will not be. More likely it will be awful. That’s just a guess, but an educated guess, based on past experience. Not that I blame teachers. I love teachers. Some of them. My first-grade teacher for instance. I still send her a birthday card.
No. I blame homework. I hate homework. And teachers who won’t give you extra time if you need it. And talking in class—because I’m a nervous wreck. Also group projects. I really, really hate group projects. You see, I used to get stuck doing all the work. Now I just refuse to do any at all. Either way, it’s not so good. I know that.
My relationships with my peers are problematic. You don’t need to point it out. I am fully aware of the fact. My relationships with my parents are likewise problematic. I don’t think I’ll go into that right now. The point being—teachers are actually the least of my worries. Except you give so much homework.
In first grade we didn’t get homework. Well, maybe sometimes we had to write in a notebook or draw pictures but the spelling didn’t matter and my teacher always wrote me a nice note which my parents would read to me since I couldn’t read yet, and then it was like not just my teacher was praising me but also my mom or dad was saying, “I love your funny picture of the pumpkin”—or whatever. And a couple of times we had to memorize a poem and I didn’t even mind reciting it in front of the class, because I loved the poem, like this one:
Fly away, fly away, over the sea,
Sun-loving swallow, for summer is done.
Come again, come again, come back to me,
Bringing the summer and bringing the sun.
It’s not that I don’t try to do my homework. I come straight home from school. I mean, what else would I do? I don’t like “extracurricular activities” and I don’t like “hanging out with the guys” and I for sure don’t have a girlfriend. So I come home. And I don’t watch TV because TV is stupid. I just sit right down at the dining room table and I take out my books and sharpen my pencils and I look at the list of things I have to do and I think, this isn’t so bad, what’s the big deal? And I think, today will be the day when I finish my homework on time, I’ll even finish it before my parents get home, and they won’t yell at me and I won’t be stressed out, and after dinner I’ll listen to some maybe John Coltrane or Santana and I’ll go to bed at ten and tomorrow I’ll be rested and cheerful and I’ll turn in all my homework and the rest of my life will be happy, and maybe I’ll even get a girlfriend.
But that’s not how things turn out.
GAP
BY CAROL LASHOF
An African-American sophomore in high school, WILL struggles with being racially typecast instead of being placed in the more advanced courses that would challenge and interest HIM.
SCENE
A large public high school in a progressive American city
TIME
The present
WILL: I have this dream where I go back to my grade-school playground and I say to the other Black boys: Am I Black enough for you now? Am I? Black enough?
Kindergarten, first grade, second, third, it was always Sophie Rosen and me at the top of the class and best friends. Math: when the other kids were doing drill-and-kill arithmetic problems, row after row, we got to sit in the hallway with a book of logic games, like figuring out if you told your parents you’d wash the dishes for just a penny on the first day and then double it every day—by the end of week three you’d be making more than $10,000. Sophie and me, we figured out by the time we were ten, we’d be billionaires. Then we got the giggles trying to decide how we’d spend all that money, and the teacher across the hall got mad about the noise and sent us back to our classroom and complained to Mr. Theodore about letting us be on our own in the hallway. But he kept on letting us anyway, because he was chill. And he liked us, he trusted us—I could tell.
The third-grade spelling bee: down to the wire. Sophie spelled “orangutan.” I spelled “Connecticut,” remembering the capital “C.” We both messed up on “vivacious.” She beat me on “rhythm.” Ironic, huh?
This school is so big, if something gets screwed up, you can grow old and die trying to fix it. For instance, last year, in ninth grade, they put me in Algebra I instead of Algebra II—and by the time I got moved to the right class I was way behind and the teacher was pissed off about having to deal with me. He didn’t think I belonged there—I could tell.
This year, my classes are mostly so boring I don’t see the point of going. No one notices whether I’m there or not anyway. There’s a computer that’s supposed to call home when you’re absent, but mostly I can erase the messages before my parents get home.
I’m 6’2” and I have a buzz cut with “W” shaved into the back. Sometimes I see Sophie crossing the park on the way to school. She always waves and smiles, but her friends, they look at me and they just see “scary.” I guess I’m Black enough for them.
GEM OF THE OCEAN
BY AUGUST WILSON
CITIZEN BARLOW, a young man from Alabama in spiritual turmoil, recalls the tryst HE had with a woman and the loneliness that has ensued since.
SCENE
The Hill District, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the parlor of Eli, Aunt Ester and Black Mary’s home at 1839 Wylie Avenue
TIME
1904
CITIZEN: You got on that blue dress. I met this gal at a dance one time had on a blue dress. She had on a blue dress and she had her hair slicked back. Her mouth made her face look pretty. She was dancing and she had tears in her eyes. I asked her why she was crying. She said she was lonesome. I told her I couldn’t
fix that but if she wanted somebody to walk her home after the dance I’d walk her. See that she got home safe. She thanked me and went on crying. Say she felt better, and after the dance I could walk her home since I was going that way. She had a good time dancing with some of the other men. I danced with her some more. She was smiling but she still had tears in her eyes. After the dance I walked her home. I seen at the dance that she had a nice way about her. When she was walking home she put her hand in mine. She asked me did I want to stay the night. I told her yes. I told her I was at the dance looking for a woman. She asked me why didn’t I tell her, we could have saved each other some time. I woke up in the morning and she was laying there crying. I didn’t ask her about it. I didn’t try and stop her. I lay there a while trying to figure out what to do. I ended up holding her in my arms. She started crying some more. I held her a while and then I left. I said good-bye to her and started walking away. She was standing in the door. I looked back and she was standing so she fit right in the middle of the door. I couldn’t see if she was crying. She kind of waved at me. I got a little further on and turned and looked back and she was still there. Look like she had got smaller like she might have sat down in the doorway. That’s what it looked like to me. I can still see her standing there. Had a green door and I can see her standing in it. I don’t know what happened to her. I’d like to look on her face again. Just to know that she all right and if she stopped crying. If I could see her face I believe that would be enough.
[BLACK MARY: Maybe you’ll get the chance. What you gonna tell her if you see her again?]
CITIZEN: I don’t know. Sometimes I lay awake at night when I be lonely and ask myself what I would say to her. Sometimes I tell her to stop being lonely. I tell her it’s something she doing to herself. But then I’m laying there lonely too and I have to ask myself was it something I was doing to myself? I don’t know. I ain’t lonely now. I ain’t got no woman but I still don’t feel lonely. I feel all filled up inside. That’s something I done to myself. So maybe I did make myself lonely.
GEM OF THE OCEAN
BY AUGUST WILSON
CAESAR, a successful Black man in his 50s, explains his difficult past and the importance of family to his younger sister.
SCENE
The Hill District, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the parlor of Eli, Aunt Ester and Black Mary’s home at 1839 Wylie Avenue.
TIME
1904
CAESAR: I got to play the hand that was dealt to me. You look around and see you black. You look at the calendar. Slavery’s over. I’m a free man. I can get up whatever time I want to in the morning. I can move all over and pick any woman I want. I can walk down the street to the store and buy anything my money will buy. There ain’t nothing I can’t have. I’m starting out with nothing so I got to get a little something. A little place to start. You look and see the race you got to run is different than somebody else’s. Maybe it’s got more hills. It’s longer. But this is what I got. Now what to do with it?
I look around and see where niggers got to eat and niggers got to sleep. I say if I had some bread I’d be a rich man. I got some bread. In the valley of the blind the one-eyed man is king. I started selling hoecakes off the back of a wagon. I’d cook them over the coals. I got me some beans. Selling them right out the pot. I even put a little pork in them. Police ran me off the corner. Say I needed a license. It took me a while but I got me a license. I had to pay six or seven people but I got me a license.
Niggers say my bowls was too small. I got bigger bowls. Say I didn’t put enough pork in the beans. I put in more pork. I got me some chickens. I charged extra for the big ones and the people got mad. One man told me the chickens had big feet but they didn’t have big wings. I seen I was in the wrong business. Said I was gonna let niggers eat on their own and give them a place to sleep. Only I didn’t have no money to buy no property.
Went down to the bank to borrow some money. They told me I needed some collateral. Say you need something to borrow money against. I say all right, I’ll get me some collateral. I opened me up a gambling joint in the back of the barbershop.. Sold whiskey. The police closed it down. I had to put some bullet holes in a couple of niggers and the police arrested me. Put me on the county farm. I had to bust a couple of niggers upside the head for trying to steal my food. A couple tried to escape. I caught them. That don’t do nothing but make it harder on everybody. They out there enjoying their freedom ducking and dodging the law and everybody else on half rations and got to make up their work.
A fellow named John Hanson started a riot. I seen that wasn’t gonna be nothing but bad news. I took him on one-to-one. Mantoman. He busted my eye. He busted my eye but I put down the riot. They gave me a year. I did six months when the mayor called me in to see him. Say he wanted to put me in charge of the Third Ward. Told me say you fry the little fish and send the big fish to me. They give me a gun and a badge. I took my badge and gun and went down to the bank and laid it on the counter. Told them I wanted to borrow some money on that. There was a fellow name Harry Bryant had a place on Colwell Street he sold me. They ran him out of town. Charged me three times what it was worth. Took the money and ran. They tried to kill him for selling to a Negro. I say all right I got me a little start. Niggers got mad at me. Said I must have thought I was a white man ’cause I got hold to a little something. They been mad at me ever since. Everybody mad at me. You mad at me.
[BLACK MARY: It ain’t about being mad at you, Caesar. You’re my brother. I respect and honor that. I always have and I always will. But we don’t owe each other any more than that.]
CAESAR: I ain’t got but one sister and I try to do right by her and you push me away. Family is important. I know the value of family. Blood is thicker than water. It’s been that way and always will be. You can’t even water it down.
Your mother wanna turn blood into vinegar. When Uncle Jack was dying she wouldn’t even go see him. Say he was fooling the people being a fake blind man. She was right. But that’s her brother! He deserve better than that. You can’t sit in judgment over people. That’s God’s job. God decide who done right or wrong. Uncle Jack dying and calling for his sister and she wouldn’t even go and see him. That’s the kind of mother you got. You let her run your life. Got you thinking like her. You thinking wrong and don’t even know it. Many a time I tried to make up to her but she wouldn’t have it. Called me a scoundrel. But that didn’t stop me from paying for her funeral. I paid for the funeral and even shed a few tears. If I had known any prayers I would have said them. Why? ’Cause she family. You give up on family and you ain’t got nothing left.
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