Black Activists Write Wheatley and Washington: Terrell, Du Bois, and the Drama of the 1932 Bicentennial...

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Lurana Donnels O’Malley

Black Activists Write Wheatley and Washington

Terrell, Du Bois, and the Drama of the 1932 Bicentennial

Lurana Donnels O’Malley

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English

Routledge
11 July 2025

Performance art; Theatre Studies; Social & cultural history; Popular culture; Feminism & feminist theory

Series: Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies

This book examines how early twentieth-century Black theatre artists depicted national mythologies of the United States.

White-authored pageants and plays written for the 1932 Bicentennial celebration of George Washington’s birthday relegated Black Americans to the periphery through racist stereotyping. Black activists Mary Church Terrell and W. E. B. Du Bois seized the opportunity to place Black people at center stage and to revise contemporary views of Washington and of Black achievement. Terrell’s Historical Pageant-Play Based on the Life of Phyllis Wheatley and Du Bois’s George Washington and Black Folk dramatize how the achievements of Black men and women fit into the US origin story. Terrell’s script is a biography of the life of the enslaved African poet Phillis Wheatley; Du Bois’s pageant is a transgressive revision of the Washington myth.

The book’s chapters contextualize these plays within the larger Bicentennial event. O’Malley also includes her edited version of Terrell’s script, published here for the first time.

This interdisciplinary book will be a valuable resource for college and university courses in American theatre and performance studies, Black Studies, and Women’s Studies.

By: Lurana Donnels O’Malley
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 680g
ISBN: 9781032360935
ISBN 10: 1032360933
Series: Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 11 July 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

PART ONE: Historical Background & Critical Analyses Chapter 1: Washington Conscious: The George Washington Bicentennial of 1932 Chapter 2: Idealizing Washington: Portrayals of an Enslaver Chapter 3: Black Voices and the Bicentennial: Performances By and For Black Citizens Chapter 4: Visions of Washington in DC: Three White-Authored Bicentennial Performances Chapter 5: Terrell Chooses Wheatley: The Creation of the Wheatley Pageant-Play Chapter 6: The Trials of Mary Church Terrell: The Production of the Wheatley Pageant-Play Chapter 7: Du Bois and the Bicentennial Crisis: George Washington and Black Folk Chapter 8: Conclusion PART TWO: Edited Script Chapter 9: Historical Pageant-Play Based on the Life of Phyllis Wheatley by Mary Church Terrell

Lurana Donnels O’Malley is Professor Emerita in Theatre and Dance at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, USA, where she taught in the areas of Euro-American theatre history, research, and directing from 1991 to 2025.