Abstract
My mother and father first met in a romantic accident. She had come to Texarkana, Texas to meet one of her cousins, but had confused the dates. Nobody was there to greet her when she stepped off the train. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity in the hot sun, a man appeared, sitting up tall on the back of a white horse. He politely asked why she was standing there alone. She explained her situation. After comforting her, he suggested that her family might come for her next day and that, in the meantime, he would gladly take her to his sister’s house to spend the night. He then dismounted and helped her up onto his horse. The pair started talking along the way home.
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Notes
In actuality, cotton prices experienced a steady increase in 1912–1920. The price drop did not take place until 1921, well after Armistice Day (Nov. 11, 1918). See: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, Part 1 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), E-123–124.
Wiley College was founded in 1873 in conjunction with the Freedman’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Its charter noted: “the object … is to establish and perpetuate an institution of learning wherein may be afforded opportunities to all, without distinction of race, condition, sex, or religious antecedents, to acquire a liberal education.” This mission statement was expanded in 1920 with the clause that the goal was to provide a place for “young Negro men and women of the Southwest to obtain a liberal Christian education that will fit them for leadership.” By 1933, under the energetic and inspired leadership of its president, Wiley became widely recognized as one of the best black colleges in Texas, with a faculty that included three Ph.D.s and twelve M.A.s. See Michael R. Heintze, Private Black Colleges in Texas, 1865–1954 (College Station, Texas: Texas A & M Univ. Press, 1985), 23], 42, 59, 100.
A leading activist in the 1960s, Farmer’s life is perhaps best recounted in his autobiography: Lay Bare the Heart, An Autobiography of the Civil Rights Movement (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1998); see also Robert E. Jakoubek, James Farmer and the Freedom Rides (Gateway Civil Rights) (Brookfield, Connecticut: Millbrook Press, 1994).
Tolson taught at Wiley from 1924 to 1947, taking a year off 1930–1931 to pursue a Master’s degree at Columbia University. It was after his year in New York that his first poetry was published. Some of his pieces became memorable contributions to the Washington Tribune in the late 1930s and early 1940s. It was in 1947 that Tolson was asked to compose the centennial ode to Liberia and became that country’s poet laureate. However, perhaps his best-known body of work, “A Gallery of Harlem Portraits,” was not published until the 1970s. See Melvin B. Toslon, A Gallery of Harlem Portraits, ed. Robert M. Farnsworth (Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1979).
For more information see Joy Flasch, Melvin B. Tolson (New York: Twayne, 1972),
and Robert M. Farnsworth, ed., Caviar and Cabbage: Selected Columns by Melvin B. Tolson from the Washington Tribune, 1937–1944 (Columbia, MO.: University of Missouri Press, 1982).
Calverton was a respected Marxist intellectual of the “Old Left” who founded the Modern Quarterly, wrote the column “Cultural Barometer” for Current History, and edited the Anthology of American Negro Literature, among numerous other activities. It was through the anthology that he became aware of Tolson, eventually leading to his decision to publish Tolson’s work in the Modern Monthly. See Farmer, Lay Bare the Heart, 137; and Leonard Wilcox, V.F Calverton: Radical in the American Grain (Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 1992), 1–11, 224.
Konstantin Stanislavski, a cofounder of the Moscow Art Theater in 1897, developed the first acting “system.”The “Stanislavski Method” became perhaps the single most important influence on modern stage and screen acting. He indirectly affected such important acting schools as the Actors Studio and the Group Theater. He laid the foundations for modern opera and can be credited with helping to catapult the careers of Maksim Gorki and Anton Chekhov. Stanislavski died the year Virgil arrived in New York. The American Negro Theater attempted to integrate his repertory style for their productions, forming a core group of 25 permanent actors that were trained in his techniques. See Sonia Moore, The Stanislavski Method; The Professional Training of an Actor. Digested from the Teachings of Konstantin S. Stanislavski (New York: Viking Press, 1960);
William B. Worthen, The Harcourt Anthology of Drama (Fort Worth: Hartcourt College Publishers, 2002); Schomburg Center Archive, American Negro Theater Records, “The American Negro Theater—(Behind the Scenes).”
Born in Washington, D.C. in 1900, Hayes’ career was truly illustrious. She started acting when she was only five years old. By age nine, she was already starring on Broadway in the play Old Dutch. Nicknamed “The First Lady of American Theater,” her career on stage and screen lasted for nearly 80 years until her death in 1993. See Helen Hayes, with Dody Sandford, On Reflection; An Autobiography (New York: M. Evans, 1968);
and Helen Hayes, with Katherine Hatch, My Life in Three Acts (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990).
More on Abram Hill can be found in: Loften Mitchell, Voices of the Black Theater (Clifton, New Jersey: James T White & Company, 1975), 113–51;
and Harold Bloom, Black American Poets and Dramatists (New York and Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 1995), 60–72.
Information on the Federal Theater Project and black participation is drawn from Ronald Ross, “The Role of Blacks in the Federal Theatre, 1935–1939,” in The Theatre of Black Americans, ed. Errol Hill (New York: Applause Books, 1987);
and Anita Gonzalez and Ian Granick, “Federal Theater Project,” 2001, http://www.igranick.com/portfolio/website/african/navigation.html.
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© 2004 Ben Vinson III
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Vinson, B. (2004). Virgil: Before the War. In: Flight. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403981448_2
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