The Civil Rights Theatre Movement in New York, 1939–1966

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Julie Burrell

   Pages 1-24

3. The Negro People’s Theatre and the Emergence of the Civil Rights Theatre Movement

   • Julie Burrell

   Pages 25-67

4. “An American Dilemma”: Dramas of the Returning Negro Soldier

   • Julie Burrell

   Pages 69-111

5. Rescripting the Negro Problem: The Cold War-Civil Rights Play

   • Julie Burrell

   Pages 113-152

6. “To Be a Man”: Progressive Masculinities in Lorraine Hansberry’s Cold War-Civil Rights Plays

   • Julie Burrell

   Pages 153-184

7. Alice Childress’s Wedding Band and the Black Feminist Nation

   • Julie Burrell

   Pages 185-216

8. Epilogue

   • Julie Burrell

   Pages 217-225

9. Back Matter

   Pages 227-236

   PDF

This book argues that African American theatre in the twentieth century represented a cultural front of the civil rights movement. Highlighting the frequently ignored decades of the 1940s and 1950s, Burrell documents a radical cohort of theatre artists who became critical players in the fight for civil rights both onstage and offstage, between the Popular Front and the Black Arts Movement periods. The Civil Rights Theatre Movement recovers knowledge of little-known groups like the Negro Playwrights Company and reconsiders Broadway hits including Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, showing how theatre artists staged radically innovative performances that protested Jim Crow and U.S. imperialism amidst a repressive Cold War atmosphere. By conceiving of class and gender as intertwining aspects of racism, this book reveals how civil rights theatre artists challenged audiences to reimagine the fundamental character of American democracy.

• Race
• Civil Rights
• Broadway
• Jim Crow
• Richard Wright
• Alice Childress
• African American theatre
• "Negro people's theatres"
• World War II
• Ossie Davis
• Lorraine Hansberry
• Feminism
• A Raisin in the Sun

“The Civil Rights Theatre Movement should be on the reading list of any scholar interested in civil rights culture, the history of American theatre in the 20th century, or the history of radicalism in the United States.” (Madeline Steiner, gothamcenter.org, February 23, 2021)

“The Civil Rights Theatre Movement in New York, 1939–1966 documents the contributions of often marginalized Black playwrights like Alice Childress, Theodore Ward, and Richard Wright. In examining their radical perspectives in the 1940s and 50s—a period thought to be apolitical in Black Theatre—Julie Burrell convincingly demonstrates how these authors helped inspire the activist Black Arts Movement of the 1960s.” (Professor Emerita Kathy A. Perkins, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA)

“This enlightening study brings much-needed new attention to a pivotal period of African American theatre history. Through rigorous research and insightful analysis, Julie M. Burrell showcases the activism of black theatre artists of the 1940s and 1950s—highlighting the lofty ambitions (and the sometimes imperfect results) of their efforts to resist white oppression, and to agitate for racial and economic justice through the stage. This is an indispensable resource for scholars, students, and artists alike.” (Dr Jonathan Shandell, Arcadia University, UK, and author of The American Negro Theatre and the Long Civil Rights Era)

 

• Cleveland State University, Cleveland, USA

  Julie Burrell

Julie Burrell is an Assistant Professor of English and Black Studies at Cleveland State University, USA. She has published in MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States and Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre and Performance, as well as in the volume Imagining the Black Female Body: Reconciling Image in Print and Visual Culture (2010).

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