private. It is her grand, though publicly unacknowl-
edged, ancestry that enables her to rage at injustice
but control her passions in the face of desertion.
The British ballad ends with a striking image of a
red rose growing out of the bosom of Fair Eleanor,
who is buried in the choir section of the church,
and a briar emanating from the heart of the faith-
less Lord Thomas, who is also buried in the church.
Cullen’s version reflects his effort to recoup the bal-
lad and use it to explore the tensions among high
romance, segregation, and social hierarchy. The
work also reflects his steady interest in contemplat-
ing the value and lingering powers of a mythic and
romantic African past.
Bibliography
Cullen, Countee. The Ballad of the Brown Girl, An Old
Ballad Retold with Illustrations and Decorations by
Charles Cullen.New York: Harper & Brothers,
1927.
Ferguson, Blanche. Countee Cullen and the Negro Renais-
sance.New York: Dodd, Mead, 1966.
“Negro Wins Prize in Poetry Contest.” New York Times, 2
December 1923, E1.
Shucard, Alan. Countee Cullen.Boston: Twayne, 1984.
Vaughan Williams, R., and A. L. Lloyd, eds. The Penguin
Book of Folk Songs.London: Penguin, 1959.
Balo: A One-Act Sketch of Negro Life
Jean Toomer(1924)
A one-act folk play that JEANTOOMERwrote for
the HOWARD UNIVERSITY PLAYERS, the drama
troupe based at HOWARDUNIVERSITYin WASH-
INGTON, D.C. It was included in the program for
the 1923–24 season at the Howard Theatre. The
play is one of two of Toomer’s works that was
staged during his lifetime. It was included in Plays
of Negro Life,the anthology that Howard Univer-
sity professors T. MONTGOMERY GREGORY and
ALAINLOCKEpublished in 1927.
A portrait of religious fervor and transcen-
dence, the play is set in Georgia at a time when the
harvests are poor and farming families find them-
selves depending on their modest savings for suste-
nance. The cast includes Will and Susan Lee, both
of whom live in the shadow of an antebellum “old
frame mansion” that “stands, or rather, the ghost of
it, in the direct vision of [their] front door”
(Toomer, 219). The play is marked for its simplicity
of setting and its minimalist plot. As critic Frederik
Rusch notes, Balo“has only the slightest plot and
little individual character development” (Rusch,
116).
The Lees and their sons, Tom and Balo, are
hard-working individuals. The boys return home
from a night spent boiling sugarcane and preparing
syrup. When they arrive home at dawn, they pre-
pare to rest and read a few verses from the Bible
before they sleep. This is the first occasion when
Balo slips into a spiritual reverie. Balo, whom
Michael Krasny describes as a “frenziedly devout”
boy “who experiences a somnambulistic outburst
of religious passion’ (Krasny, 103) takes pleasure in
the verses from a chapter in the Gospel of
Matthew and repeats the phrase, “An’ th’ floods
came, an’ th’ winds blew,” several times. While the
boys are sleeping, their parents receive a visit from
Mr. Jennings, a white man whose family lives in
close proximity to the Lees. In the course of the
conversation, Jennings reveals that Balo has been
“actin’ like he was crazy” and repeating the phrase
“White folks ain’t no more’n niggers when they
gets ter heaven.” While Jennings laughs about this,
the location and the inherent racial tensions of the
South make this an auspicious moment.
The second set of interactions in the play re-
volve around visits from cousins and their families.
The group, which now includes some six children
ranging in age from two and a half years to 12
years, eventually begins to sing hymns and discuss
spiritual matters. Four more people appear, and the
group members begin to play a game of cards, even
though they hesitate because it may be a worldly
act that could offend Will, their host. He “turns his
gaze into the fire, and by his silence gives consent”
(Toomer, 224). As they play, conversation drifts
back to Bible stories and, without warning, Balo
“jumps to his feet” and begins to declare, “Jesus,
Jesus, I’ve found Jesus” (Toomer, 224). His excla-
mations prompt those playing the card games to
cease their activity and they “file out, heads low-
ered, in sheepishness and guilt” (Toomer, 224).
James Hatch and Ted Shine suggest that Balo
is “more a sketch than a play” and that “it is also
more honest than most folk drama” (Hatch and
Shine, 218). The character of Balo, they suggest,
achieves “sensitivity and... tenderness... in the24 Balo: A One-Act Sketch of Negro Life