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

1st Edition

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

By Lurana Donnels O’Malley Copyright 2026
282 Pages 22 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

282 Pages 22 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
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... Read more

Acknowledgements vii

Author’s Note viii

Abbreviations ix

Part I

Historical Background and Critical Analyses 1

1 Washington Conscious: The George Washington Bicentennial of 1932 3

2 Idealizing Washington: Portrayals of an Enslaver 35

3 Black Voices and the Bicentennial: Performances By and For Black Citizens 60

4 Visions of Washington in DC: Three White-Authored Bicentennial Performances 87

5 Terrell Chooses Wheatley: The Creation of the Wheatley Pageant-Play 133

6 The Trials of Mary Church Terrell: The Production of the Wheatley Pageant-Play 175

7 Du Bois and the Bicentennial Crisis: George Washington and Black Folk 201

8 Conclusion 225

Part II

Edited Script 229

9 Historical Pageant-Play Based on the Life of Phyllis Wheatley by Mary Church Terrell 231

Index 266

Biography

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.

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