“We will never have to be other than who we are in order to be successful.”
Alice Walker’s The Color Purple
Racism in the Arts
Racism in theatre has an extensive history. The “inclusion” of people of color in productions first began with actors dressing up and using makeup to change their appearance to mimic those of non-European descent in stereotypical ways. That act of white actors dressing up as people of color is commonly referred to as Blackface minstrelsy.
It’s worth noting that Jim Crow laws were named after a minstrel character, highlighting the parallel structure of the two pieces of history.
Production Images of Purlie. 1
Minstrelsy began to rise in the United States after the emancipation of enslaved Black people across the country. Former slave owners viewed this change as an unfair and unnecessary change in the power structure of the country. No longer did they have physical and direct economic power over Black people. This sparked a racist outcry that grew into the minstrelsy art form, with white performers portraying racist caricatures of Black people. By playing these caricatures of Black people, performers wouldn’t need to cast actual Black people while also contributing to and reifying a racist power structure. These kinds of performances were commonplace and later reinforced by Jim Crow laws, which legalized many racist systems for daily life.
While Jim Crow laws dehumanized Black people through legal procedures, the Jim Crow minstrel character dehumanized them through societal pressure.
Minstrel shows were so normalized that Mark Twain, “the father of American literature”, seemed to not understand its negative effects. Reminiscing about the “death” of minstrel shows, he stated that, “[the show] was a thoroughly delightful thing, and at a most competent laughter-compeller and I am sorry it is gone”. 2
The combination of Jim Crow laws and minstrelsy in the South drove former enslaved Black people to migrate to the North, in a movement known as the Great Migration. In turn, this lead to the northern revitalization of black arts and performance known as the Harlem Renaissance, which occurred in the early 1900s, shortly before Jim Crow laws were abolished in 1965. 3 Unfortunately, the change in civil rights laws didn’t immediately change people’s mindsets. Therefore, it was important for African American artists to change how the world saw them, and their stories.
The minstrel shows became self-contradictory and internally unstable due to their inherent racial nature post-slavery during the Harlem Renaissance. It was a way to reinstall the power structure that emancipation had eliminated. Understanding the history of minstrelsy serves as a precursor to the most relevant interpretations of people of color in theater before actual Black people decided to officially enter the space. 4
White Faces Behind Black Stories
Of course, minstrelsy should be a relic of the past, not to be found in any sane performance space post-1970… hopefully. We’re taking a big jump through time here, but we’re leaping through a rapidly evolving performing arts industry, throughout which Black artists begin to find spaces to tell their own stories on their own terms. Things at this point in our story are far from perfect. We can look at the 1970 Broadway production of Purlie, and how its history and development show both development and stagnation. Set in the Jim Crow South, Purlie follows its title character, a traveling preacher, and his return to his hometown in Georgia. He finds his community church in danger of being torn down to make way for a cotton plantation.
On the one hand, this was a vibrant production with an important story at its core, showcasing African American traditions, stories, performers, and struggles. The production even released a promotional booklet showcasing beautiful pictures of the Black actors on stage. Surely this marks a huge step forward in the era of Black theatre! Well… not quite. In the promotional book for the original Broadway production, after flipping past the production pictures, you would arrive at the headshots and bios of the musical’s production team.5 For a story about the Black community, you might expect or want to see a team of Black artists working hard to tell their own stories, but instead, you will find a slew of white people in leadership roles, therefore profiting off Black history. Of the production’s credited four writers, only one, Ossie Davis, was Black. What’s worse — he wasn’t really a writer of the musical itself; he just wrote the play that’s the basis for the musical. Kind of like how Allison Bechdel will always be credited for the musical Fun Home, but she didn’t write the show — just the graphic novel the show is based on. Purlie was produced by white producer and director Philip Rose, who assembled a largely white team of designers to build the world of this African American story. What should have been the mark of major strides in the industry’s efforts toward diversity, equity, and inclusion, was instead the return of minstrelsy in a different form. Yes, this production featured the incredible work of Black performers, but white people framed the entire story. Is it really so different?
Vintage Playbill for Original Broadway Production of Purlie. 12 They each have a story of a director, casting agent, or writer asking them to conform to what their audiences might expect the music of a Black artist to sound like.
Music director John Bronson describes it very well. He talks about how he once worked on a production of The Color Purple, and couldn’t stop wondering: “Why does it sound like Dreamgirls?” To which actor Elijah Caldwell responds, “‘cause ‘that’s what Black is.’”13 There’s a certain “sound” that white audiences associate with black artistry. Instead of challenging that view, productions that feature Black stories often just embrace the notion that Black singers need to have a certain style.
Black artists were forced to conform to the artists that set this expectation, and give way to the assumption that all Black singers have to sound the same. As they strive for individuality, they are trapped in the mold that the industry creates for them in their desire for monetary success.
Black Theatre Hits the Road, The Effect on America
What happens when white audiences are directly challenged? What happens when their worldview is flipped on its head, making way for new stories? Luckily, we have a prime example with The Wiz.
Everyone knows the story of The Wizard of Oz: young and naïve Dorothy Gale gets stranded in the mystical land of Oz, making her way down the Yellow Brick Road with a merry band of misfits in search of the great and powerful Wizard. Audiences often associate this movie with its famous star, Judy Garland, and the movie’s other cast members, which are entirely white cast. In the 70s, the story gets revamped with The Wiz: same characters, same story, but a new perspective. The Wiz tells the tale of Dorothy’s trip to Oz with an all-Black cast and creative leadership, and new songs that embrace African American culture, dance, and music, taking a story that has, up until The Wiz, been performed by white artists.
Vintage Playbill of the Wiz. 14
It’s a gamble when showing it to white audiences — there was a chance that it would be seen through racist eyes as “stealing.” However, archived clippings from newspapers all over the country contain critical reviews of the national tour mounting of this musical.15 Perhaps surprisingly, audiences LOVED The Wiz. It was fun, heartwarming, and a fresh take on a beloved story. This just goes to show how wrong the producers of Purlie had it—audiences can—and perhaps want to—be challenged through art, allowing art to serve as a vessel for change and progress.
News clippings detailing rave reviews of The Wiz 16
As Black theatre made its way across the country, the positive effects that arose for Black actors became clear. Black artists increasingly turned away from Western standards, embracing instead values and perspectives rooted in Black nationalism.17 By creating art outside the box built by a white industry, Black artists facilitated the progression of Black theatre in the whole country. The box that used to be exclusive and small began to expand, both in terms of the number of people welcomed and the diversity of those people. By putting time, effort, and money into shows like The Wiz, audiences began to learn how to take in media created by Black artists. Was it directly for them? No, not anymore. Not in the sense that it speaks to their world experiences. Could they still enjoy and learn from it? Absolutely. In this sense, it is still for them, just not in the same way they’re used to. Its purpose was now to expose them to new cultures and values.
The Black Arts Movement
In the West, the art of performance has been primarily dominated by white (or white presenting) individuals and viewed by those of a relatively higher socio-economic. Even today, the most powerful producers, actors, writers, and directors are primarily cis, straight, wealthy white men.
The Black Arts Movement emerged in 1965 from the Black Power Movement, which itself rose to fame after the assassination of Malcolm X.18 What started as a small repertory theatre in Harlem soon expanded. While the BAM was specifically a group of artists in their own production companies, we examine the principles of the movement. BAM was focused on Black artists telling Black stories, embracing individualism, and rejecting white expectations of Black artists. We don’t have to go far to find examples of this—a dive into the archives at the University of Maryland is all we need to document the rise of the principles of the Black Arts Movement. Using evidence from UMD also offers an example of a local effect of a very national movement.
Racism and the Black Arts Movement at the University of Maryland
What was the Black student body like at the University of Maryland? What was happening from a post-civil rights perspective? Student newspapers give us a perspective from the Black student body through The Diamondback and The Black Explosion.
The Black Explosion served as a voice for Black students to bring awareness to issues concerning the Black community. The 70s was a period of protest at the University of Maryland. Patricia Wheeler voiced her concerns in a March 1971 Black Explosion article, claiming that “anytime Black people move in a positive direction we are labeled inverse racists.”19 Her concerns followed a protest about the denial of the Urban Information Specialist Program. This was the second protest asking the Library Science Department to approve the program for the Black Student Union. The protest wasn’t just about the program though; Black students at Maryland were in an endless cycle. In the last two years, the finance committee and the Home Economics Department had butted heads with the BSU, and it was happening again. One of the signs carried at the protest said, “When you hurt one black you hurt them all.”20
Black Explosion’s photograph of black protests from 1971 issue & Black Explosion’s photograph of black protests from 1972 issue Forbes, Cornell. 21
Fast forward a bit to May 1972, when the Black student body took their protest up to the President of the university, the BSU submitted several main demands to the administration, including the creation of a committee that addresses racist attacks, an increase in Black enrollment, the establishment of a financial aid program, an increase in pay for Black staff, and the creation of office space for Black organizations. 22 The tone of these demands is simply explained by the fact that they were tired of this treatment.
In December 1972, Otis Williams published “Just One Squeeze of the Trigger Away,” an article about the murder of two Black students at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 23 He claimed that racism was “alive and flourishing” no matter where you lived and that it shouldn’t take another Black man being murdered to acknowledge that and make a change at the University of Maryland.
The murder of two Black men at Southern University wasn’t just an individual problem, but instead a problem of structural and systemic racism. Brutality against Black individuals wasn’t something new and a lot of racist behavior seems to be unconscious; hence why Black students had to address UMD’s racist practices through protest.
Knowing that Black people were underrepresented at their state schools, one could imagine how underrepresented they were in the arts. During this period, Dr. Archie Buffkins, the Assistant Dean of Graduate Studies at UMD, was a huge advocate for Black participation in the arts. One solution he stressed was The Kennedy Center National Commission on Blacks. 24 The Commission sought to provide an arena for Black artists who did not have the facilities to perform or expand their creativity. Black folks didn’t have to be a part of UMD to pitch their ideas, it was located in Washington, D.C! This was convenient since Washington D.C. had a peak Black population of around 70% in 1970. 25 With D.C. being the most Black it had ever been, this was a genius investment. Another one of the Commission’s goals was to implement programs (the musical theater laboratory and the studio theater) to attract new talent in music, performance, and dance. The Commission also had a big goal: to increase Black employment at the Kennedy Center. Overall, Buffkins put it well: “If an art center can improve the lives of folks in the ghetto, then maybe there’s help for the inner cities in other states, too.”26
<!– Add custom element to of your page –>Black Individualism in the Arts
At UMD, we see Black artists “paving the way” in bringing Black individualism to into artistic performance. One prominent artist who came to UMD during this time was Chuck Berry, a world-renowned guitarist and singer.
There’s a really strong sense of individuality and power in the contracts and advertisements for this concert. This show was NOT just Chuck Berry, it was also Jerry Lee Lewis, as well as a backup band—up-and-coming young starters Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. However, it’s stipulated in all of these contracts that Berry was to get top billing and 100% star credit in all advertisements.27 Seeing a Black artist featured in the publicity agenda and strategies is interesting, especially when put on top of a white artist. Furthermore, when UMD’s offer failed to recognize Berry as the star that he was, he refused the contract, asking for more money, which he got. 28
An interview with Bruce Springsteen of the “Howard Stern Show.” 29 Springsteen speaks to Stern about playing backup to Chuck Berry in the concert discussed above.
However, even Berry’s efforts weren’t all successful. He did get top billing on all material, but, on the promotional flyers placed all around campus, Lewis’s picture comes before his. This just goes to show that Black artists face structural and implicit racism no matter how hard they work to dispel it, and racist people will always find a way to confirm their biases.
Concert promotional poster for Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Bruce Springsteen 30
Another artist striving for individualism and independence at the time was Aretha Franklin, who performed at UMD on August 11, 1973. In support of her community, proceeds of the concert went to the Black Honors Caucus, and the University of Maryland and Howard University research center for Sickle Cell Anemia. 31 Franklin performed a song titled “In Spanish Harlem,” originally by Ben E King. Interestingly, she changed the lyrics from “a red rose up in Spanish Harlem” to “there’s a rose in Black ‘n’ Spanish Harlem.”32
Aretha Franklin Concert at UMD Advertisement 33
Though the lyric change may be subtle, this was not the first time she has done this. She has also explicitly changed the lyrics of Otis Redding’s “Respect” in 1967. Her recording of “Respect” was one of her most famous songs, so we can safely assume that it was performed—at least listened to—at UMD. She not only changed the lyrics in this song but also the melody and vocals. There is an added “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” hook compared to the Redding version and backing vocals that provide a “spirit of call-and-response.” The call-and-response technique in songs encourages a sense of community, and in this case brings Black brothers and sisters together. Franklin’s lyrical additions had a recurring theme of female empowerment and racial equality.34 We see this with the lyrics “Find out what it means to me” following the R-E-S-P-E-C-T hook and “Sock it to me.” With these elements, Franklin not only gave a leadership role to herself but also a voice to Black women demanding respect, especially during a time that called for women to serve their husbands.35 Aretha Franklin’s intersection of identities made her instrumental in the Civil Rights and Feminist movements. This also connects her to the Black Arts Movement and its effort to celebrate artistic individualism. Recognizing her own power and putting it into her music is a key feature of her artistry.
At the University of Maryland, Franklin’s importance in the Black Arts Movement is seen in the “Feelin’ Good” performing arts event in 1977. Produced by the National Theatre Company, the event was an informative history lesson about the fight against Black inequality.36 The performers enacted the roles that dehumanized Black folks in minstrel shows. In the closing act, the performers impersonated Diana Ross, Johnny Mathis, Harry Belafonte, James Brown, and Aretha Franklin. This sequence highlights the transformative power of performance art in reclaiming and reinterpreting Black identity. By including Aretha Franklin among other iconic figures, the event underscores her influence not only as a musical icon but also as a symbol of resilience and progress in the broader struggle for racial justice. When it comes to performance arts, her name is among other influential artists of her time period. To be impersonated in a performance about the historical significance of Black inequality is also strong evidence that she was connected to the fight for racial justice.
It’s this sense of individual power and self-worth that had been struggling to break into the community of Black artists in the 70s. The oppression of Black theatre and arts had been acting as a suppression of identity. In this era, Black artists were forced into succumbing to a vision for their culture as defined by the dominating forces in the industry and its audiences – namely, white people.37 We see this quite literally in this example. The “dominant culture’s demand,” in this case, is the worth that UMD Student Entertainment and Events assigned to Chuck Berry and his performance. However, instead of allowing his worth to be determined by others, Berry takes the opportunity to embrace what he knows his artistry is worth and demands better treatment from the university event organizers.38 On the one hand, it’s frustrating to see how the problems Berry faced in the 70s are still a prevalent issue in the industry today. However, Berry’s story highlights the long and extensive history of Black resistance to structural racism.
The artists in this conversation spend a lot of time lamenting the genuine issue of the value of Black artists being assigned by white people. Aretha Franklin is a similar example, but here we can see how Black artists resisted structuralism through the art itself. While Berry took the initiative to argue for his self-worth from a business standpoint, Franklin put her values right into her music, resisting pressure to conform to others’ ideas of her and making her music speak to her and her community. She wasn’t afraid to be who she was onstage and made sure that her stories were told to all of her audiences. It’s one thing to advocate for yourself behind the scenes. It’s another to advocate for your whole community on the global stage. After a lifetime of people of higher social status stealing her power and her voice, she reclaims her self-worth through her art.
Where Are We Today?
How much progress have we made? Has the theatre industry resisted change, or embraced it? To consider this, we can look back at The Wiz, which recently celebrated its first revival on Broadway, and is currently touring the rest of the country. Like its predecessor, this production is being hailed as a hit, and, unlike the original Purlie, employs a full slate of Black artists on its creative team. The problem? Even in today’s modern era, shows like The Wiz struggle with the racist tones of the industry. The large issue this production is scrutinized for is the set design.39 The set is almost completely digital, with a large LED wall sitting upstage lit with images and videos translating the world of Oz. Instead of hiring Black artists to build and paint the set pieces in the show fully, the production went out of its way to save costs with this cheap design choice, costing Black artists creative and financial opportunities. Not only that, but this choice takes the soul out of the show, making it feel cheap and disrespectful to the story it’s telling.
And yet, the industry is growing. Producers and directors are making a conscious effort to extend job opportunities to people of color, even in places where it breaks tradition. There’s been a recent rise in the trend that started in the late ’60s: taking traditionally white musicals and examining them through a lens of race by casting Black actors. The most famous example of this is, of course, Pearl Bailey as Dolly Levi in a 1967 revival of Hello, Dolly! This all-Black production of such a recognizably white show was a big leap but opened up such nuanced conversations. Color-conscious casting opens up new exploratory avenues for musicals old and new, seeing how the story can be viewed from different points of view. Hamilton, for example, is so effective partly because we’re watching an incredibly diverse cast of actors tell an incredibly white story. This idea returns to the stage this fall in the highly anticipated revival of Gypsy, starring the incomparable Audra McDonald as Mama Rose. This production brings race into the conversation in a new way. With a Black Mama Rose, a Black actor as Louise, a mixed-race actor as June, and white actors as Herbie and Tulsa, this production will explicitly explore how race can play a role in a show about taking advantage of artists. Rose relying on Herbie to make her daughters successful tells a new story of the harms of relying on a “white savior” figure. June is able to leave with Tulsa, a white actor, because, unlike Louise, she passes for white, and has more freedom to take the risk of going out into the world with little support from home. With this, the show opens up so many job opportunities for Black actors that just wouldn’t have explicitly been there in the first place, marking an important shift in the industry to bring people of color into the bigger picture.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Chuck Berry Concert Records. April 26, 1973. Box 2, Folder 33. Series 1: Administrative Records, 1969–2010 and undated. Records of Student Entertainment Events (SEE) Records. Special Collections and University Archives, Hornbake Library, University of Maryland Libraries.
Feinberg, Lawrence. “D.C. Population: Ratio of Whites, Blacks Is Stable.” The Washington Post. February 28, 1981.
Forbes, Cornell. “Protest! March! Demand!” Black Explosion. May 19, 1972. Digital Collections, University of Maryland Libraries. https://digital.lib.umd.edu/student-newspapers-old/id/e7edcc92-b43f-4916-84ee-d4062b20a13e?relpath=pcdm&query=1972-05-19.
Franklin, Aretha. “Respect.” Performed live on the street. 1968. Black Music Archive LIVE!, posted February 14, 2022. Video of performance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMkCI6Ym3qw
Keyes, Cheryl. “Buffkins Seeks to Interest Blacks in Fine Arts.” Black Explosion. February 16, 1977. Digital Collections, University of Maryland Libraries. https://digital.lib.umd.edu/student-newspapers-old/id/3d4e0a22-1e4e-42e6-9ae0-c7a77e903f2c?relpath=pcdm&query=%22stevie%20wonder%22.
Newspaper Clippings: Critical Reviews for First National Tour, The Wiz (1979). Box 3. SCPA Theatre Programs Collection. Special Collections in Performing Arts, Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library, University of Maryland Libraries.
Parker, Mark. “The University of Maryland Program Board Presents in Concert Aretha Franklin.” The Diamondback. August 9, 1973. Digital Collections, University of Maryland Libraries. https://digital.lib.umd.edu/student-newspapers-old/id/949c7473-ce9d-42d0-a5ca-097aa569def1?relpath=pcdm&query=%22aretha%20franklin%22.
Souvenir Program for Original Broadway Production of Purlie (1970). Box 2. SCPA Theatre Programs Collection. Special Collections in Performing Arts, Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library, University of Maryland Libraries.
Springsteen, Bruce, on “The Howard Stern Show.” “Bruce Springsteen Played With Chuck Berry” Interview by Howard Stern. Posted October 23, 2024. Video of interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiSrket6kR4
Wheeler, Patricia. “Blacks Protest Racist Treachery.” Black Explosion. March 1, 1971. Digital Collections, University of Maryland Libraries. https://digital.lib.umd.edu/student-newspapers-old/id/6037a850-d376-4a63-85d6-8008301246ca?query=%22black%20protest%22.
Wilens, Patrica. “Operation Control: Campus Police Aim for Campus Safety.” Black Explosion. August 27, 1973. Digital Collections, University of Maryland Libraries. https://digital.lib.umd.edu/student-newspapers-old/id/a8992649-503f-4458-a596-84da1ea15b09?relpath=pcdm&query=%22aretha%20Franklin%22.
Williams, Otis. “Just One Squeeze of the Trigger Away.” Black Explosion. December 4, 1972. Digital Collections, University of Maryland Libraries. https://digital.lib.umd.edu/student-newspapers-old/id/54c691cc-5245-4f2b-baa1-61912d9a46ce?relpath=pcdm&query=%22racism%22.
Winer, Laurie. “Campus Hosts History Lesson: Acts Outlines Black Struggle.” The Diamondback. March 14, 1977. Digital Collections, University of Maryland Libraries. https://digital.lib.umd.edu/student-newspapers-old/id/b437337d-23e5-4d9c-ad63-64efca8d92c1?relpath=pcdm&query=%22aretha%20franklin%22.
Scholarly Sources
Asare, Masi. “The Black Broadway Voice: Calls and Responses.” Studies in Musical Theatre 14, no. 3 (December 2020): 343–359. https://doi.org/10.1386/smt_00047_7.
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Bell, Bernard W. “Twain’s ‘N*****’ Jim: The Tragic Face Behind The Minstrel Mask.” Mark Twain Journal. 23, no. 1 (Spring 1985): 10–17.
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Hill, Errol. “The Revolutionary Tradition in Black Drama.” Theatre Journal 38, no. 4 (December 1986): 408–426. https://doi.org/10.2307/3208284.
Lott, Eric. “‘The Seeming Counterfeit:’ Racial Politics and Early Blackface Minstrelsy.” American Quarterly 43, no. 2 (June 1991): 223–254. https://doi.org/10.2307/2712925.
Malawey, Victoria. “‘Find Out What it Means To Me:’ Aretha Franklin’s Gendered Re-Authoring of Otis Redding’s ‘Respect.’” Popular Music 33, no. 2 (2014): 185–207. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261143014000270.
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Additional Sources
Feinberg, Lawrence. “D.C. Population: Ratio of Whites, Blacks Is Stable.” The Washington Post. February 28, 1981.
Foster, Hannah. “The Black Arts Movement (1965–1975)” BlackPast. January 9, 2023. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/black-arts-movement-1965-1975/.
Gordon, David. “Review: A Big, Empty Revival of the Wiz Lacks the Magic of Broadway.” TheaterMania. April 17, 2024. https://www.theatermania.com/news/review-a-big-empty-revival-of-the-wiz-lacks-the-magic-of-broadway_1737204/.