for the extensive coverage it provided on race-
related matters, the newspaper’s staff during the
1920s and 1930s included WILLIAM KELLEY,
THELMABERLACK, and R. LIONELDOUGHERTY,
and their collaborative efforts contributed to the
paper’s reputation for excellence and forthright de-
fenses of the race.
Bibliography
Pride, Armistead Scott, and Clint C. Wilson. A History
of the Black Press.Washington, D.C.: Howard Uni-
versity Press, 1997.
“Days”Brenda Ray Moryck(1928)
A short story by BRENDARAYMORYCKthat ap-
peared in the June 1928 issue of THECRISIS.
Moryck tackled the controversial issue of residen-
tial segregation and racial stereotypes in this story
about an African-American couple who move into
a predominantly Greek, Irish, and Italian commu-
nity. The white immigrant families and descen-
dants are convinced that the dark-skinned
attorney and his light-skinned, albeit clearly privi-
leged, wife are going to ruin their neighborhood.
By year’s end, however, the couple, through unself-
conscious example, has succeeded in inspiring
their white neighbors to take pride in their prop-
erty and themselves.
Deacon’s Awakening, TheWillis Richardson
(1920)
A dynamic one-act play by WILLISRICHARDSON,
one of the leading American dramatists of the
Harlem Renaissance. Published in the November
1920 issue of THE CRISIS, the play focuses on
women’s political empowerment and is regarded as
a pioneering feminist drama of the period.
The play, which is set in WASHINGTON, D.C.,
focuses on the tensions that arise when a women’s
group called the Voting Society challenges the
conservative patriarchal perspectives of their
church’s board of deacons. The deacon Dave
Jones, whose wife Martha and daughter Ruth are
passionately committed to women’s suffrage, draws
the unfortunate task of spying on the upcoming
meeting of the society. His wife learns of the pend-
ing treachery and successfully thwarts his under-
cover mission by arranging for him to visit a sick
neighbor. One of his fellow deacons, however, does
gather information on the women participants and
reports to the group and to Deacon Jones. In one
of the most memorable scenes of the play, the dea-
con confronts his wife and is dismayed by the elo-
quent resistance that she displays. Martha is one of
the primary advocates of women’s suffrage and,
with her daughter, has been actively educating
local women about their political rights and re-
sponsibilities. The deacon insists that she “can’t
make [him] believe in a woman voting” and she
tells him, quite confidently, that he will “believe in
it of [his] own accord when [he] wake[s] up.” As
the play proceeds, the deacon is hard-pressed to ig-
nore the democratic principles that his wife is ad-
vancing or the emancipatory domestic politics in
which she fervently believes. She rejects the narrow-
minded notion that women should content them-
selves with only housework and child-rearing and
refuses to accommodate the deacon’s board or her
husband on this point.
Christine Rauchfuss Gray suggests that despite
the illuminating presentation of women’s rights and
empowerment, The Deacon’s Awakening reflects
Richardson’s inability to represent fully independent
women. She does propose, however, that the play
establishes important precedents for later Richard-
son plays, those in which women who “[a]lthough
they may be under the control of men... exert
what power they can in their circumstances” (72).
The play was the first work that Richardson pub-
lished in The Crisis,and it signaled his willingness to
explore controversial and meaningful domestic is-
sues. It also hinted at the significant impression and
formative influence that his talented teachers, the
playwrights MARYBURRILLand ANGELINAGRIMKÉ,
had upon him while he was attending the renowned
M Street School in Washington, D.C.Bibliography
Gray, Christine Rauchfuss. Willis Richardson, Forgotten Pi-
oneer of African-American Drama.Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press, 1999.Dear Lovely DeathLangston Hughes(1931)
A collection of poems by LANGSTONHUGHES. Its
title was chosen by AMYSPINGARNat a time116 “Days”