than any part of the South” (NYT,15 April 1917,
SM8).
Granny Maumee is one of several Harlem
Renaissance–era plays that place women in the
foreground of antilynching dramas. Like Granny
Maumee, they appear as scarred female survivors
of lynchings or as disempowered witnesses. This
work, with its noticeable generation gap, com-
ments explicitly on the ruptured genealogy of fami-
lies who suffered the barbarity of lynching in
America.
Bibliography
Gunning, Sandra. Race, Rape, and Lynching: The Red
Record of American Literature, 1890–1912. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Locke, Alain, and Montgomery Gregory, eds. Plays of
Negro Life: A Source Book of Native American
Drama.1927; reprint, Westport, Conn.: Negro Uni-
versities Press, 1970.
Wells-Barnett, Ida B. On Lynchings: Southern Horrors, a
Red Record, Mob Rule in New Orleans. Amherst,
N.Y.: Humanity Books, 2002.
Graven Images May Miller(1929)
A stirring one-act play for children by MAY
MILLERSULLIVAN, the playwright, editor, teacher,
and daughter of HOWARDUNIVERSITYdean Kelly
Miller. Written in 1929, “Graven Images” was pub-
lished shortly thereafter in PLAYS ANDPAGEANTS
FROM THELIFE OF THENEGRO,edited by fellow
playwright WILLISRICHARDSON. In his introduc-
tion to the volume, Richardson described Miller’s
work as a neo-romance. He added that the play’s
roles for children and adults meant that the work
could be “portrayed by teachers and their pupils.”
The pedagogical import of Miller’s work con-
tributed to her promise as a playwright who would,
in Richardson’s words, further help to “make the
Negro drama worthy of attention.”
The play explored the Old Testament history
of Moses, his Ethiopian wife Zipporah, and the
racism of Moses’s siblings Aaron and Miriam.
Miller anticipated the historical novel of her friend
and fellow Howard University student ZORA
NEALEHURSTON. In 1939 Hurston revisited the
story of the Jewish leader that included a substan-
tial and lively account of his marital relationship
and the tensions prompted by Zipporah’s African
heritage in Moses, Man of the Mountain.Miller’s
focus on the interracial dimensions of Moses’s fam-
ily brings together disparate Old Testament refer-
ences to his wife and sons. In addition, Miller
highlights the better-known conflict recorded in
the Book of Numbers (Chapter 12: 1–15). In this
scene, Moses confronts his jealous siblings, and
God transforms Miriam, the one who rejects Zip-
porah most strongly, into a leper with intensely
white skin.
Miller uses interactions between children to
highlight the limitations and prejudices of adults.
The play begins as Ithamar, a son of Aaron, and
other Israelite children discover a golden bull.
The group of boys disregards the prohibitions re-
garding the worship of idols and creates play ritu-
als of worship. They are midway through their
speeches and offerings of clothing and hair to the
idol when a group of girls comes upon them. As
they dictate the girls’ inferior position and rein-
force prohibitive gender roles, Eliezer, the
youngest son of Moses and Zipporah, discovers
the group. He is amused by the performance. His
laughter and pronouncement that “in Hazderoth
little boys and girls dance and worship idols while
their parents worship Jehovah” does not endear
him to the group. After initial teasing and rejec-
tion because of his golden color and the fact that
he is “a foreign boy,” the mixed-race child of the
revered leader of the Israelites becomes the object
of worship. Miller makes a fascinating interven-
tion as Eliezer capitalizes on the value of the
golden bull and claims the status of precious ob-
ject for himself:Eliezer: I shall make a far better idol than
this. (he springs lightly to the platform in front
of the idol) Look, this idol is gold. (he strips
his tunic off to the waist) Am I not gold? (the
boys press forward murmuring their assent)
Come feel your idol. It is cold but I am
warm. Warm gold. (the boys press closer)
And see! see! You worship this thing that
does not so much as nod his thanks. Its still,
but I move, I move.The Bible contains no direct transcript of the inter-
actions between Miriam and Zipporah. In GravenGraven Images 195