“Antropoi”John F. Matheus(1928)
A short story by JOHNF. MATHEUSset in the West
Virginia countryside that addresses the tension be-
tween Americans of African descent and European
immigrants who are better able to assimilate into
the dominant white culture.
“Antropoi” chronicles the division and then
restored connection between Bushrod Winter, a
man born free in Ohio in the last year of the Civil
War, and Demetrius Pappaniasus, a Greek immi-
grant whose brown-skinned Syrian wife and children
symbolize the problematic notion of whiteness in
America. White privilege, racial segregation, and
the Ku Klux Klan severely test the solidarity and
the conceptions of citizenship of both men.
Matheus’s story, which appeared in the August
1928 issue of OPPORTUNITY, underscored the
pathos associated with assimilation, ethnicity, and
racial alienation.
Apollo Theater
Formerly known as Seamon’s Music Hall, the
Apollo Theater is located on 125th Street between
Seventh and Eighth Avenues in HARLEM.
It offered audiences upscale entertainment
featuring such talented performers as Benny
Carter’s orchestra but also presented comedy
acts that tended to veer away from the more
decorous musical presentations. Theater histo-
rian Bernard Peterson notes that the theater
“regularly emphasized a vaudeville policy, with
films only ‘sandwiched’ in between live perfor-
mances” (Peterson, 17). One of the popular
shows booked at the Apollo during the Harlem
Renaissance was the 1933 production of Black-
birds, starring Bill Robinson, Lionel Monagas,
and Edith Wilson.
The Apollo is one of the best-known theaters
in America and continues to be synonymous with
African-American talent.
Bibliography
Anderson, Jervis. This Was Harlem: A Cultural Portrait,
1900–1950. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux,
1982.
Peterson, Bernard L. ed. The African American Theatre
Directory, 1816–1960: A Comprehensive Guide to
Early Black Theatre Organizations, Companies, The-
atres, and Performing Groups. Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press, 1997.AppearancesGarland Anderson(1925)
A play originally entitled Don’t Judge by Appear-
ances that enjoyed 23 BROADWAYperformances in
fall 1925 and secured for GARLANDANDERSON,
who had completed it in less than one month, the
honor of being the first African-American play-
wright to have a full-length play on Broadway. An-
derson, who was working as a bellhop in San
Francisco when he wrote the script, crafted a daring
story about Carl Sanderson, an African-American
bellhop falsely accused by a woman of rape. The
similarities between Anderson and his protagonist,
represented by their occupations and the modest
variation in surnames, infuse the drama with addi-
tional realism and tension. The drama is further
complicated by the fact that the accuser ultimately
is revealed to be a woman of color in league with an
attorney who is determined to persecute Sanderson.
The primary setting for the three-act play is
the Hotel Mount Shasta, a San Francisco hotel.
The prologue introduces two judges and Carl, the
bellhop who believes that “if he, with color, lack of
education, lack of money and all against him, can
work his dream out in real life, it will prove that
other people with greater advantages can naturally
do greater things.” Judge Thornton instructs Carl
to share his dream of achievement with the skepti-
cal Judge Robinson, and the bellhop’s account
marks the transition into Act One and into the
play itself. Appearancesfocuses mainly on Carl’s
plight as a man unfairly accused of a crime. It also
incorporates secondary plots that focus on the
white characters who are grappling with suspicious
business partners, courtships, and marital problems.
Carl Sanderson, a bookish young man, repre-
sents African-American intellectual and social po-
tential. An earnest and conscientious worker, he is
engaged to Elsa Buford, the hotel’s acting house-
keeper, who also is a law student. Anderson re-
veals, however, that the couple’s high professional
goals and their generally impressive demeanor are
not enough to protect them from racial prejudice
and mob violence. One evening, Carl becomes the
unfortunate target of a robbery. Elsie Benton, a
white Utah woman who is posing as a widow but12 “Antropoi”