Biracial Palimpsests: Racing and Erasure in Black Empire and Haiti

Riley, Shannon Rose

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-59211-8_7

Shannon Rose Riley³

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History ((PSTPH))

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Abstract

Two of the most popular plays on the Haitian Revolution, drawing over 100,000 audience members between them, were Federal Theatre Project (FTP) productions about Henri Christophe: Black Empire (1932) by Christine Ames and Clark Painter and Haiti (1938) by New York Times journalist, William DuBois. The Los Angeles Negro Unit produced Black Empire in 1936 and the Seattle Negro Unit staged a smaller version in 1938. That same year, the Harlem Negro Unit opened Haiti at the Lafayette. Over several months, Haiti also ran at Daly’s in New York, in Boston (with the New York cast), and at the Avery Memorial where the Hartford Negro Unit staged it. Of all the plays on the theme of the Revolution, only Haiti staged any of the anti-white violence for which the historical event is typically emblematic.

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Notes

1.
“William Dubois, 93, Playwright and Editor,” New York Times, March 19 1997.
2.
Georgia S. Fink et al., “Synopsis and Production Notes for ‘Black Empire’,” in Library of Congress Federal Theatre Project Archive (Fairfax: George Mason University, 1936), 7. John O‘Connor et al., “Haiti and Black Empire,” in Free, Adult, Uncensored: The Living History of the Federal Theatre Project, ed. John O’Connor, et al. (Washington D.C.: New Republic Books, 1978), 118. Claude Miller directed in LA; Esther Porter Lane in Seattle. Ibid., 119.
3.
Library of Congress, “Federal Theatre Project Collection: A Register of the Library of Congress Collection of U.S. Work Progress Administration Records [Finding Aid],”(2005), http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.music/eadmus.mu995001. O’Connor et al., “Haiti and Black Empire,” 117.
4.
Rena Fraden, Blueprints for a Black Federal Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 181.
5.
J. Michael Dash, “The Theater of the Haitian Revolution/the Haitian Revolution as Theater,” Small Axe 18 (2005): 18.
6.
Loften Mitchell, Black Drama: The Story of the American Negro in Theatre (New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1967), 102–103.
7.
Glenda Eloise Gill, White Grease Paint on Black Performers: A Study of the Federal Theatre, 1935–39 (New York: Peter Lang, 1988).
8.
Ibid., 97.
9.
Clare Corbould, “At the Feet of Dessalines: Performing Haiti’s Revolution During the New Negro Renaissance,” in Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890–1930, ed. W. Fitzhugh Brandage (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 279–280.
10.
Carl Hancock Rux, “A Rage in Harlem: Is the Classical Theatre of Harlem a Black Theatre Company? Does It Matter?,” American Theatre Magazine 2004.
11.
Ibid.
12.
W.E.B. Du Bois, “Krigwa Players Little Negro Theatre: The Story of a Little Theatre Movement,” The Crisis 32 (1926): 134.
13.
Susan Quinn, Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art out of Desperate Times (New York: Walker & Company, 2008), 99. “Harlem 1900–1940: Schomburg Exhibit Lafayette Theatre,” The New York Public Library, http://exhibitions.nypl.org/harlem/
14.
Quinn, Furious, 111.
15.
Langston Hughes et al., Black Magic, a Pictorial History of the Negro in American Entertainment, 4th ed. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1970), 119.
16.
Quinn, Furious, 102. Anne Blumquist, “The Federal Theatre Project: Stock Is Taken of the First Year’s Activities of the Government’s WPA Theatre Program,” Social Work Today IV, no. 2 (1936): 17.
17.
US Congress established the FTP in 1935 as a Depression era relief program. It was organized into five regional centers and included 16 Negro Units. Elizabeth Osborne, “A Nation in Need: Revelations and Disaster Relief in the Federal Theatre Project,” Journal of American Drama and Theatre 20, no. 2 (2008): 52 n. 12. McClendon, a leading actress in the 1920s, was founder of the Negro People’s Theatre and briefly co-directed the Harlem Unit before she passed away in 1936. Dennis Kennedy, ed. The Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
18.
Shannon Rose Riley, “Mistaken Identities, Miscegenation, and Missing Origins: The Curious Case of Haiti,” Performing Arts Resources 28 (2011).
19.
O’Connor et al., “Haiti and Black Empire,” 118.
20.
William Pickens, “Black Empire,” The Capitol Plaindealer, May 29 1936.
21.
Ibid.
22.
———, The New Negro: His Political, Civil and Mental Status, and Related Essays (New York: Neale Publishing Company, 1916).
23.
O’Connor et al., “Haiti and Black Empire,” 120.
24.
Ibid.
25.
Christine Ames et al., “Black Empire: A Drama in a Prologue and Three Acts,” (Fairfax: Library of Congress Federal Theatre Project Archives at George Mason University, 1932); Fink et al., “Synopsis.” The script references appendices on ritual choreography, drumbeats, and costumes, but they cannot be located in the GMU archives.
26.
Martin Dies, The Trojan Horse in America (New York: Dodd, Mead, & Company, 1940). Quinn, Furious, 243.
27.
“Statement of Mrs. Hallie Flanagan, National Director, Federal Theater Project,” in Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1938).
28.
Quinn, Furious, 247.
29.
Qtd. in ibid., 279.
30.
John O’Connor et al., Free, Adult, Uncensored: The Living History of the Federal Theatre Project (Washington D.C.: New Republic Books, 1978), 20.
31.
Judith Ellen Brussell, “Government Investigations of Federal Theatre Project Personnel in the Works Progress Administration, 1935–1939 (the Show Must Not Go On!)” (City University of New York, 1993), 222.
32.
Quinn, Furious, 247.
33.
Journal American, August 21, 1938, qtd. in ibid.
34.
Marquis Childs, I Write from Washington (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1942), 92.
35.
Jerry Mangione, The Dream and the Deal: The Federal Writers’ Project, 1935–43 (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1972), 225.
36.
From the 1939 FBI Report on Federal Project One. Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, File 46–72 (1-30-39) in 117–11, DOJ, RG 60, NNFJ-J, National Archives. Brussell, “Government Investigations,” 274–305.
37.
William DuBois, “Haiti,” in Federal Theatre Plays, ed. U.S. Federal Theatre Project, et al. (New York: Random House, 1938), 21, 11.
38.
“Theatre Project Faces an Inquiry,” New York Times, July 27 1938.
39.
Riley, “Mistaken Identities”; ———, “Racing the Archive: Will the Real William Du Bois Please Stand Up?,” English Language Notes (ELN) 45, no. 1 (2007).
40.
W. B. Du Bois, Haïti, trans. Nicole Vincileoni, CEDA Theatre (Abidjan: Editions CEDA, 1983), 17.
41.
Riley, “Racing the Archive.”
42.
In order to avoid confusion, I consistently spell W.E.B.’s family name with a space and William’s without, while retaining the capitalization of the “B” in each: e.g. W.E.B. Du Bois and William DuBois.
43.
“Footlight Flickers,” The Plaindealer, February 25 1938.
44.
Alvin Moses, “Footlight Flickers,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 17 1938; ———, “Footlight Flickers,” Atlanta Daily World, March 21 1938.
45.
O’Connor et al., “Haiti and Black Empire,” 117.
46.
Clark qtd. in ibid., 119. The term “cracker” has been used to refer to whites from the south with racist attitudes or to signify someone poor and white, particularly from Georgia (“The Cracker State”) or Florida. OED and Hubert Henry Harrison, When Africa Awakes [1920] (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1997), 37, 38, 51, and 105–106.
47.
Clark qtd. in O’Connor et al., “Haiti and Black Empire,” 119.
48.
Ibid.
49.
Ibid.
50.
“New Plays in Manhattan,” Time 31, no. 10 (1938): 34.
51.
William DuBois, “Thanks to the Federal Theatre,” New York Times, March 20 1938.
52.
Ibid.
53.
“Shuberts Want ‘Haiti’,” New York Times, March 10 1938.
54.
DuBois, “Thanks,” 150.
55.
Shubert Foundation, 11 Dec. 2010 http://www.shubertfoundation.org/about/brothers.asp
56.
O’Connor et al., “Haiti and Black Empire,” 117.
57.
One historical review describes the revision. “A Climactic Scene of a Big Battle Gave Him a Fight: The Playwright Provided a Little Dialogue; the Rest Was up to the Director,” Herald Tribune, March 27 1938.
58.
Mary Renda, Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915–1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 286.
59.
Corbould, “Feet of Dessalines,” 279. To document these claims, Corbould uses secondary sources. Ibid., 287, n.77, n.80, n.81. Nor does she cite from the play. Ibid., 281–282, n.2.
60.
Errol G. Hill et al., A History of African American Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 318–19.
61.
Kate Dossett, “Commemorating Haiti on the Harlem Stage,” The Journal of American Drama and Theatre 22, no. 1 (2010): 84.
62.
William DuBois, “Haiti,” ed. National Service Bureau (Fairfax: Federal Theatre Project Records, George Mason University, 1938); ———, “Haiti.”; ———, “Complete Working Script of ‘Haiti’ by William Dubois,” (New York: Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (unpub.), 1938).
63.
William DuBois Papers (Boston University: Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center).
64.
Richard Schechner, Between Theater and Anthropology (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), 38.
65.
Quinn, Furious, 232; Renda, Taking Haiti, 286; Riley, “Racing the Archive”; ———, “Mistaken Identities.”
66.
“Schomburg Addresses WPA Players on Haiti,” New Journal and Guide, February 5 1938. “Technique of Play Flayed by Reader,” The New York Amsterdam News, February 26 1938.
67.
Adrienne Macki, “(Re)Constructing Community and Identity: Harlem Experimental Theatre and Social Protest,” Journal of American Drama and Theatre 20, no. 2 (2008).
68.
Diana Rebekkah Paulin, Imperfect Unions: Staging Miscegenation in U.S. Drama and Fiction (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012).
69.
DuBois, “Complete Working Script.”
70.
Howard Barnes, “‘Haiti’ Play by William Dubois Produced in Harlem,” Herald Tribune, March 3 1938; Arthur Pollock, “The Theatre: Rex Ingram and the Federal Theater Make a Picturesque and Exciting Show out of ‘Haiti’ at Harlem’s Lafayette,” Brooklyn Eagle, March 3 1938; John Anderson, “‘Haiti’ a Vivid, Exciting Picture of Rebellion,” Journal American, March 4 1938.
71.
Brooks Atkinson, “The Play: William Dubois’s ‘Haiti’ Opens in Harlem,” New York Times, March 3 1938.
72.
Anderson, “Vivid, Exciting.”
73.
Brenda Gayle Plummer, Haiti and the United States: The Psychological Moment (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992), 36.
74.
“Footlight Flickers,” February 25; Moses, “Footlight Flickers,” March 21.
75.
———, “Footlight Flickers,” March 21, 2. Another of his reviews, dated March 17, uses less inflammatory rhetoric but is otherwise similar. Namely, there is no capitalized font and the term “Neighbors” is used instead of “Negrophobes.” ———, “Footlight Flickers,” March 17.
76.
“Schomburg Addresses WPA Players on Haiti.”
77.
“Heroes of Haiti Live Again in WPA Theatre Play ‘Haiti’,” New Journal and Guide, February 12 1938.
78.
Al Monroe, “Harlem WPA Players Hear Haiti’s Early Tilt,” Chicago Defender, February 5 1938.
79.
“Technique of Play Flayed by Reader.”
80.
DuBois, “Haiti,” 58.
81.
———, “Thanks.”
82.
“Climactic Scene.”
83.
“New Plays in Manhattan,” Time 31, no. 10 (1938), 36. Mitchell, Black Drama, 103.
84.
Barnes, “‘Haiti’ Play by William Du Bois.”
85.
DuBois, “Haiti,” 6–7.
86.
Brooks Atkinson, “Anatomy of a Comedy Mind,” New York Times, March 6 1938; ———, “The Play.”
87.
Pollock, “The Theatre.”
88.
Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 96.
89.
“Footlight Flickers,” The Capitol Plaindealer, May 6 1938.
90.
“Footlight Flickers,” February 25.
91.
DuBois, “Haiti,” 23.
92.
Ibid.
93.
W.E.B. Du Bois, “Haiti (1920),” in W.E.B. Du Bois: A Reader, ed. David Levering Lewis (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1995), 466.
94.
DuBois, “Haiti,” 58–59. Dion Boucicault, “The Octoroon (1859),” in American Drama: Colonial to Contemporary, ed. Stephen Watt, et al. (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1995), 129.
95.
DuBois, “Haiti,” 80.
96.
Ibid.
97.
Atkinson, “The Play.”
98.
Ibid. Barnes, “‘Haiti’ Play by William Du Bois.”
99.
Pollock, “The Theatre.”
100.
Stark Young, “To Keep the Wind Away,” The New Republic 94, March 23 (1938). Joseph Wood Krutch, “In the Grand Style,” The Nation 146, March 12 (1938): 309.
101.
Barnes, “‘Haiti’ Play by William Du Bois.” “Review of ‘Haiti’.” Pollock, “The Theatre.”
102.
Matthew Pratt Guterl, “The New Race Consciousness: Race, Nation, and Empire in American Culture, 1910–1925,” Journal of World History 10, no. 2 (1999): 351, n.85.
103.
Robert Sylvester, “WPA’s ‘Haiti’ Exciting and Well Staged,” Daily News, March 3 1938.
104.
Du Bois spoke very critically of the racial stereotypes used in the play. W.E.B. Du Bois, “Criteria of Negro Art,” Crisis 32 (1926): 296–297. In 1930, a British film based on the play was released in New York and was considered indecent due to the racial content. “White Cargo (1942),” Internet Movie Database (IMDb), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035553/
105.
Barnes, “‘Haiti’ Play by William Du Bois.”
106.
Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 59.

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San Jose State University, San Jose, CA, USA
Shannon Rose Riley

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Riley, S.R. (2016). Biracial Palimpsests: Racing and Erasure in Black Empire and Haiti . In: Performing Race and Erasure. Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59211-8_7

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59211-8_7
Published: 01 June 2016
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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