Civil Rights: Theater Of 1950S Essay, Research Paper
The 1950s was the time that Civil Rights issues were coming
to a head. African Americans were making bold steps
forward, becoming heard and becoming seen. Unfortunately,
many Whites resisted these steps forward, refused to hear
and recognize these invisible men. People s ignorance
closed the doors of opportunity to many well-qualified and
deserving Black people. Even though many laws were passed,
the South was predominantly and publicly against integration
and the North was secretly racist and openly opposed. More
than laws had to change in American society. America s eyes
were soon wide open to the injustices that happened
everyday, all over the country. The social upheaval of the
1950s took place, not only on the streets, the court-rooms,
and in the home, but in the theater as well. While Civil
Rights were finally coming in to the public eye through the
new television media, play-writes pushed the issue further,
putting racial stereotypes and discrimination in the
forefront of their plays.
The inspiration for plays such as Member of the
Wedding, Trouble in Mind, A Medal for Willie, and Raisin in
the Sun came from the everyday living conditions that
America had been turning a blind eye to. The public was
desegregated through Supreme Court rulings starting with
Brown vs. The Board of Education. Brown vs. The Board of
Education decision said that segregated schools were
unconstitutional. This decision was practically impossible
to enforce on the Southern States that held that the
decision to segregate, or to DEsegregate for that matter,
was completely up to the State. The most severe show of
resistance was in Little Rock, Arkansas, where Governor
Orval Faubus was openly against nine high achieving Black
students entering all-white Little Rock Central High School.
The resistance was so, that Governor Faubus announced that
the students would have neither protection from the mobs of
White segregationists, nor would they have support from the
State. On the students second attempt to enter the High
School, Governor Faubus called in the National Guard to turn
them away with bayonets. President Eisenhower, after much
deliberation with the Governor, sent in Federal Troops to
escort the youths to and from school, as well as class to
class for four months. The next school year, Governor Faubus
closed all the public schools, and White students attended
Private Schools .
The KKK became very active, spreading violence and fear
throughout Black communities. Burning crosses, marches,
demonstrations and lynching ravaged the South. Blacks were
lynched for the most menial of infractions, if you could
call them that. Emmitt Till was beaten and drowned in the
Tallahatchie River. His body, found days later, was barely
recognizable. His crime was allegedly flirting with a White
woman. The two White men were identified and put on trial.
Testimony from his Uncle who saw the men take Emmitt from
his house, evidence of the cotton gin fan and other
obviously incriminating evidence was obviously not enough
for the men to be convicted. They confessed, or rather
bragged, about the murder months later. In other
communities, Whites spoke out against the arrival of Black
families. But somehow progress was being made. Slowly but
surely, the television screens lit up the eyes of America as
to what was REALLY going on.
The movie Member of the Wedding touches lightly on
several race issues. Censorship was running rampant thorough
Hollywood and much of the script was horribly altered. In
the original play, the old Black man corrects the young
Black man when he response harshly to Frank
Frankie s father then rips into the two of them, telling
them how they should respect White men and how stepping out
of line could be very dangerous. Later in the play, the
young Black man is thrown in jail for fighting with a White
man and while in jail commits suicide by hanging himself.
And, of course, there s the stereotypical Aunt Jemima
character. The big Black mothering slave who hands out
candid sage advise. What is actually seen in the movie is
toned down considerably and the issues are lost amidst the
tidal waves of McCarthyistic censorship.
Trouble in Mind takes the Black aspect of Wedding and
makes it into a full length play within a play. Civil Rights
and stereotypes are talked about by a Black woman play-write
named Alice Childress. She addresses almost every aspect of
the Black movement at the time. Childress writes in a
wonderfully casual and free-flowing manner, overlapping
conversation and using stereotypes to their fullest.
Through these stereotypes, Childress is able to show many
different views of Civil Rights through the eyes of the
people that Civil Rights was all about. But she did not
limit her play to Blacks talking about Blacks. In Trouble
she makes the White people the minority in their little
studio world. Childress provides classical characters and
through dialog with other characters, shows the audience why
they are thinking what they are thinking.
Another play that uses stereotypes to make a point is A
Medal for Willie. Medal, however, focuses more on
segregation and separate but equal issues. A town prepares
for a distinguished Army General to present Willie s mother
with a medal of honor because Willie died in combat. In this
play we see how the cycle is perpetuated through ignorance,
fear, and complacency. Willie s mother breaks the mold in
the end by not accepting the medal and refusing to read the
pre-written speech that she was told to read.
Lorraine Hansberry s Raisin in the Sun brought an even
more intimate look at a struggling Black family. This was a
typical, hard-working, honest family that just wanted the
American Dream: They wanted a house of their own. They
wanted their dreams of stability to come true. They wanted a
better life and they knew that they deserved it. This look
at African American life took the theaters by storm. Not
only was the cast all Black, but so was the director, and
the crew, and even the producers. Raisin was one of the
most influential plays about Civil Rights ever because of
what it said as a play and because of how it was produced.
It really brought Black play-writes, women, and actors into
the hearts of indifferent, uninvolved Americans.
The 1950s was certainly an age of racial enlightenment.
Besides the Cold War, the nuclear arms race, McCarthy s Red
Scare, the space race and the Korean War, Civil Rights was
literally next-door. It was something that many people
thought that they did not have to be involved in because it
did not affect them. People, and by people I mean White
people were more than willing to stay uninvolved because
becoming involved would say something about them. Whether it
was standing up to let a tired Black woman have a seat on
the bus, or speaking out against schools that refused to
desegregate, people were content to sit back and watch their
commercials and think, Thank God I don t have to deal with
that. These movies and plays showed the American public
that they DID have to deal with Civil Rights. That their
voice DID make a difference. That saying nothing was just
as harmful as supporting segregation. Truly, It was the
best of times, it was the worst of times, and America was
waking up.