ture. The patriarch, James Williams, is demoralized
by the racism that prevents him from finding work.
Driven to drink, he ultimately becomes a fugitive
from the law when he is falsely accused of murder.
He flees, but as a result, his wife Mary Lou and son,
Henry, are targeted and harassed by the police. His
daughter, Edna May, becomes a drug addict, and the
family seems destined for annihilation. A corrupt,
upper-class lawyer named Charles Jackson is one of
several men who sexually harass Mary Lou and try
to compromise her honor and moral standards.
Gilbert’s critique of the North as a direct
threat to African-American domestic stability is
borne out by the Williams’s return to North Car-
olina. The son, Henry, who has survived his stint
with an urban gang, is engaged to be married. The
daughter, Edna May, reappears, having recovered
from drug addiction, and with news of James
William’s exoneration and imminent return to the
family. In the last scene, Gilbert reveals that
Henry’s future father-in-law is the villain who en-
dangered the family. The ensuing attack on the
unsavory opportunist allows the Williams family to
regain their honor and demonstrate their capacity
to overcome the social evil of the larger society
and within the race.
Bibliography
Hatch, James V., and Ted Shine. Black Theater U.S.A.:
Forty-Five Plays by Black Americans.New York: The
Free Press, 1974.
Roses, Lorraine Elena, and Ruth Elizabeth Randolph.
Harlem’s Glory: Black Women Writing, 1900–1950.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996.
Espionage Act
Passed by Congress in June 1917 once America en-
tered World War I and amended in 1918, the Espi-
onage Act punished individuals found guilty of
compromising American military positions and na-
tional defense, or inciting resistance to the Ameri-
can government. Punishments included fines of up
to $10,000 and up to 20 years imprisonment.
Harlem Renaissance editor MAXEASTMAN,
editor of NEWMASSES,was one of the first figures
arrested under the act. The journal, identified as
a socialist publication, was targeted for its anti-
American articles and cartoons. Despite vigorous
efforts by Eastman and others, the publication
could not prove that it was supporting the war ef-
fort and eventually was forced to cease publication.
Other prominent figures targeted by the Espi-
onage Act included Eugene Debs, a labor organizer
and Socialist presidential candidate, and Emma
Goldman, a Russian-born anarchist and antiwar
activist who was ultimately stripped of her Ameri-
can citizenship and deported to Russia.Bibliography
Cantor, Milton. Max Eastman.New York: Twayne Pub-
lishers, 1970.
Kohn, Stephen. American Political Prisoners: Prosecutions
under the Espionage and Sedition Acts.Westport,
Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1994.
O’Neill, William. The Last Romantic: A Life of Max East-
man.New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.EssentialsJean Toomer(1931)
A work of aphorisms that JEANTOOMER, the au-
thor of CANE,published privately in 1931. In the
first republished edition of the work, the editor
Rudolph Byrd notes that the work reflects but is not
overly defined by Toomer’s belief in the philosophies
of Armenian-born mystic GEORGESGURDJIEFF.
Essentials,divided into 64 untitled sections, is
evocative of many literary and cultural traditions. It
includes spiritual and emotional directives, as well
as suggestions about how best to deal with conflict,
stress, and moral dilemmas. The work contributes to
an established American literary tradition informed
by the wise and pithy sayings of influential and en-
terprising Americans. The aphorisms of Benjamin
Franklin and Abraham Lincoln, for instance, are
well known and used frequently to characterize
events, motivations, and a variety of human behav-
iors. Toomer’s venture into this genre reflects his
deep investment in Gurdjieff’s philosophies about
conscious, even hyperconscious, existence.
The first section in the volume begins with five
declarative statements about human potential. The
entry that read, “These are my first values: Under-
standing, Conscience, and Ability,” suggested a
mantra that Toomer himself might have been ap-
plying. The very last entry in Essentialsis not an en-
tirely uplifting principle. Toomer writes, “It is our
task to suffer a conscious apprenticeship in theEssentials 143