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August Wilson August Wilson was born in 1945 and raised in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, a predominantly black community that Wilson describes as "a mixed neighborhood of people who had not yet made their way into American society." Wilson's African-American mother, Daisy Wilson, and German-born father, Frederick August Kittel, had six children: three boys and three girls. August was the fourth born and is the eldest son. Wilson ended his formal education at the age of 15, dropping out of school after a history teacher accused him of plagiarizing a 20-page essay on Napoleon. However, he continued his education at the Carnegie Public Library in a four-year, self-directed pursuit of knowledge. "Those were my learning years," Wilson has said. "I read everything and anything I could get my hands on, things that interested me; cultural anthropology was one, theology was another. I read everything, novels, whatever." When Wilson reached the age of 20, he left the library behind "to go out in the world and find life learning." Wilson first became involved in theatre in the late sixties as a co-founder of Black Horizons, a Pittsburgh community theatre. His first play to be produced-at Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul in 1981-was a musical, Black Bart and the Sacred Hills, a satirical Western in verse adapted from an earlier series of poems about a stagecoach robber. Wilson's professional breakthrough came when his play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom was accepted by the National Playwright's Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut, in 1982. This event also marked the beginning of Wilson's long association with director Lloyd Richards, head of the Playwright's Conference. Since Ma Rainey, Wilson has completed seven more plays which explore the heritage and experience of African-Americans and constitute a continuing cycle planned to include ten works, each set in a different decade of the twentieth century. The plays set in the first and last decades of the century remain to be completed. Wilson has said he intends his cycle to illustrate how much black America has changed over the last one hundred years and how much it has remained the same. Wilson's eight established plays have been widely produced and have gained far-flung popular and critical acclaim. Ma Rainey opened on Broadway in 1984 and won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Fences opened on Broadway in 1987 and earned the Pulitzer Prize, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and the Tony Award for Best Play. Joe Turner's Come and Gone opened on Broadway in 1988 and won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. The Piano Lesson opened on Broadway in 1990 and won the American Theatre Critics Association Award, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and the 1990 Pulitzer Prize. Two Trains Running opened on Broadway in 1992 and won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Seven Guitars opened on Broadway in 1996 and received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and eight Tony nominations. Jitney opened in New York in 2000 and received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. King Hedley II opened on Broadway last year and was nominated for six Tony Awards. The last six of these plays all were presented in productions prior to New York, with the author continuing to write and revise, at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston during Peter Altman's time as producing director there. Other theatres with particularly long histories of producing Wilson's plays include the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, Yale Repertory Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theater, and Seattle Repertory Theatre. In addition to winning the 1987 and 1990 Pulitzer Prizes for Drama, August Wilson has been the recipient of Bush and Guggenheim Foundation Fellowships in Playwriting and the Whiting Writers Award. He has been inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letterss, and in September, 1999, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by the President of the United States. Wilson has recently served as Chairman of the Board for the African Grove Institute for the Arts, which promotes the advancement and preservation of black theatre and performing arts. Wilson currently makes his home in Seattle, Washington.
He is the father of two daughters, Sakina Ansari and Azula Carmen
Wilson, and is married to costume designer Constanza Romero.
Field to Factory - The Great Migration of Post-Civil War American Blacks President Abraham Lincoln, in his Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, declared "that all persons held as slaves…shall be henceforward and forever free." Despite the promise inherent in Lincoln's words, however, the civil, social, and economic situation of U.S. blacks improved little after the end of the Civil War in 1865. While some significant advances for black people were achieved in the aftermath of emancipation in the areas of education, law, politics, and access to medicine, the vast majority of southern blacks remained impoverished and often reliant upon their white former masters for work. To ensure that blacks remained in a position of economic and social inferiority during the Reconstruction era of the late nineteenth century, many former Confederate states passed laws known as black codes, severely restricting the ability of African-Americans to enjoy their newly gained liberty. One of the most widely practiced forms of economic
domination was peonage, a system of involuntary servitude imposed
upon thousands of convicted criminals. In Black codes varied from state to state but generally included ordinances that barred blacks from any occupation other than agricultural laborer. The codes restricted land ownership for blacks, required black workers to obtain their employers' permission to travel on their own, and imposed curfews for blacks. Black codes gradually evolved into Jim Crow laws, which effectively broadened and further legitimized all sorts of discriminatory practices against blacks. A New Orleans newspaper published shortly after the emancipation of slaves noted that blacks were now allowed on the streets only one hour later than they had been under slavery. "This additional hour is the fruit of the victories in the field," wrote the editor. "Four years of a bloody war have been fought to gain that one hour." The enforcement of federal civil rights edicts by Union occupying forces in the early years of Reconstruction helped blacks make strides toward enfranchisement and overcome the restrictions imposed by the black codes. Many blacks attained positions of considerable influence. There were sixteen black men in the United States Congress between 1869 and 1880, two of them senators. South Carolina had two black lieutenant governors during that period, Louisiana had three, and Mississippi had one. Educational opportunities, which had been forbidden by law for blacks in the South, became a primary goal for most freed slaves. Schools were established all over the South with substantial help from the Freedmen's Bureau, an assistance organization set up by Union occupying forces. About 2,000 schools for former slaves were opened in the South shortly after the war. Black students of all ages became literate by studying in simple classroom buildings they built themselves. But to many blacks, unable to improve their conditions in the South, the North, though little understood, seemed a promised land. Few blacks in the South were able to afford to buy a home or the land on which they worked; most worked as sharecroppers or rented small pieces of land to farm. Without land of their own, blacks generally fell into debt, and their landlords often purposely misreported the profits from their crops to swindle black sharecroppers. What began as a trickle of migration during the Reconstruction era became a flood in the early twentieth century as blacks from the rural South flocked to the industrial cities of the North seeking higher wages, better homes, and greater political rights. As the result of countless individual decisions to leave an old life behind, hundreds of thousands of blacks made the journey northward in the "Great Migration," as it came to be called. In the early part of the twentieth century, movement of blacks to the North reached a peak. Thousands left the South, many fleeing not only to escape sharecropping and poor economic conditions, but also violence and lynchings. World War I (1914-18) caused a labor shortage in northern industries, so factory owners sent representatives south to recruit black workers. High salaries were promised, and one-way train tickets to the North were frequently given away. Two natural disasters, the Southern floods of 1915 and infestation by the boll weevil-a beetle that lays eggs in cotton pods called "bolls"-also prompted freedmen to head north. The Call, a Kansas City newspaper founded and published in 1919 by black printer Chester A. Franklin, helped enfranchise black people who had migrated to Missouri and Kansas looking for work. The newspaper urged the community to be politically empowered and to speak out on issues affecting the welfare of blacks. It led campaigns against lynchings, the Ku Klux Klan, and police brutality. It also fought against segregation and discrimination in education, housing, employment, and the use of public facilities. Other black-run newspapers emerged in industrial centers across the northern United States during the early 20th century, including the Chicago Defender, Indianapolis Recorder, Michigan Chronicle, Minneapolis Spokesman, Amsterdam News (New York City), The Call and Post (Cleveland), The Toledo Journal, The Pittsburgh Courier, The Afro-American (Baltimore), Milwaukee Courier, Buffalo Criterion, and numerous others. These newspapers often carried ads soliciting workers from the South. An excerpt from one such ad that ran in the Chicago Defender said: "Moulders wanted - No Fee charged - Good pay, Good Working Conditions. Firms Supply Cottages for Married Men. Apply T.L. Jefferson, 3439 State Street." Blacks who were able to leave the South, not to mention their families, churches, and communities, seldom found the utopian conditions in the North they had expected. Many did not have the skills required for factory jobs, and those who did gain employment often worked long hours with dangerous equipment. Workers in most factories were unionized, and blacks often had to choose to work as scabs when white workers went on strike. Once a strike was settled, generally black workers were abruptly laid off. This cycle gave rise to serious tension between predominantly white union members and black independents. Blacks were routinely denied membership in unions and were, therefore, locked out of many of the benefits gained through collective bargaining. With few options, blacks turned to employment as domestics or to jobs in service industries, working as streetcar conductors and doormen. Wages were higher in the North than in the South, but the cost of living was also greater. Housing was difficult to secure, being expensive and scarce. In many cities, including Pittsburgh where Joe Turner's Come and Gone is set, not enough new housing was constructed to accommodate the influx of black migrants, so it became common for migrants to live as boarders. With the demand for accommodations far outpacing the supply, the cost to rent a residence increased considerably. Because of these high rents, perhaps hoping to profit from the migration wave or perhaps more altruistically motivated to help others in need and give them a toehold in a new society, many blacks in many northern cities adapted their lifestyles and converted their homes into boarding houses, just as Seth and Bertha Holly have done in Joe Turner's Come and Gone. In 1919, race riots broke out in Chicago. Detroit experienced the same conflict in 1925. As time wore on, various new forms of discrimination emerged. Housing in cities became formally segregated as a result of whites instituting restrictive covenants in sales contracts and leases to keep blacks out of certain neighborhoods. Despite such practices, by the 1920s many U.S. blacks were moving ahead in politics, business, and education. In 1928, Oscar De Priest was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois. Many blacks who had migrated were earning more money than they ever had before. Increasing numbers of black schoolchildren were completing high school, and black-owned businesses prospered. New communities were established through fraternities, clubs, and newly formed churches. A new urban black culture began to emerge and prosper with its own literature, art, and music, reaching a zenith in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Blacks who decided to be a part of the Great Migration
during the first half of the 20th century generally considered themselves
better off for having made that decision. Even though the work they
could get was often meager, living conditions were cramped, and
many social conditions were unfamiliar and difficult, blacks felt
more a viable part of society, more enfranchised and contributory.
Feelings of loneliness and isolation persisted among countless black
migrants, but so did the determination to search for a better way
shared with others who had also striven for a fresh start in the
North.
Romare Bearden - Source of Inspiration August Wilson was inspired to write Joe Turner's Come and Gone by the painting Mill Hand's Lunch Bucket, which Romare Bearden painted in 1978. Wilson has described the spark that led to the creation of the play: "It's a painting of a boarding house in Pittsburgh in the '20s with a man coming down stairs with a huge hand reaching for his lunch bucket and a woman looking to go out. She's standing with her purse and her hat, and outside the window you can see the mill-a very orderly scene. And sitting at the table in what I'd call a posture of abject defeat or abandonment is another man. I became intrigued by this figure who I thought was central to the painting." Motivated by the image of this dejected man, Wilson started to write a short story called "The Matter of the Mill Hand's Lunch Bucket." Eventually, that figure became Herald Loomis, the protagonist in Joe Turner's Come and Gone. Romare Howard Bearden (1911-1988), now an internationally renowned American artist, was educated at Boston University, New York University, the Art Students League of New York, and the Sorbonne in Paris. Bearden is widely recognized today as one of the most outstanding black visual artists in U.S. history. |