but eager to work. Despite his desire, however, he
is unable to secure a job. He is determined,
though, to refrain from the potentially lucrative
but unsavory world of gambling and its associated
vices.
The sections that focus on female protagonists
offer starkly contrasting images of assimilation. The
sketch about Majutah reveals the efforts of one
young woman to elude her watchful and religious
grandmother. Despite her best efforts, Majutah is
unable to hide her plans to go to late night dance
clubs. The sketch closes as her grandmother kneels
by her bed and prays for the child’s salvation. The
second sketch to feature young women is much
more uplifting. Anna, the child of parents who re-
ceived little formal education, is not only accepted
to COLUMBIAUNIVERSITYbut is awarded a scholar-
ship to fund her studies. Her parents rejoice with
her, proud of their daughter’s major accomplish-
ment and the sure sign of the advancement of their
family and the race.
Bibliography
McCluskey, John, Jr. The City of Refuge: The Collected
Stories of Rudolph Fisher.Columbia: University of
Missouri Press, 1987.
Spence, Eulalie (1894–1981)
One of the most prolific playwrights of the Harlem
Renaissance and the first African-American woman
to have her work performed on BROADWAY.
Born in Nevis, West Indies, she and her family
emigrated to the United States. Her father was a
sugar planter and her mother, a seamstress. Spence
was a teacher in the years before she turned to
writing plays. She attended Wadleigh High School,
and her interest in a teaching career prompted her
to enroll at the New York Training School for
Teachers. In 1918 she began teaching high school.
In 1927 she began her lengthy career at Eastern
District High School in Brooklyn. Her students
there included Joseph Papp, the accomplished
Brooklyn-born director and producer. In 1937, fol-
lowing her successful Harlem Renaissance years,
Spence returned to school. She earned a B.S. from
NEWYORKUNIVERSITYin 1937 and completed an
M.A. in speech at COLUMBIAUNIVERSITYin 1939.
Spence retired from Eastern District High in 1958
after some 31 years of teaching English, drama,
and elocution and coaching the drama club.
Spence is known to have written 14 plays dur-
ing her career. Of these, 13 were one-act plays, and
seven were staged. Paramount Productions op-
tioned, but never produced, her only full-length
play, the three-act comedy THEWHIPPING that
was based on a novel by Ray Flanagan.
Spence enjoyed the prestige that winners in
THECRISISand OPPORTUNITYannual literary con-
tests enjoyed. In the 1926 Crisisliterary contest,
Spence, the only woman to place in the category,
won second prize for her play FOREIGNMAIL.The
winner was WILLISRICHARDSON, and the panel of
judges, which included T. MONTGOMERY GRE-
GORY, awarded RANDOLPHEDMONDStwo honor-
able mention awards. One year later, Spence’s
plays Hot Stuffand UNDERTOWwon third prize in
the Literary Art and Expression category.
In the 1926–27 Opportunity contest, judges
PAULGREEN,PAULROBESON, Edith Isaacs, and
Lula Vollmer awarded her second prize for THE
HUNCHand a split third prize for THESTARTER
that she shared with Randolph Edmonds, author of
Bleeding Hearts.That year, it was GEORGIADOU-
GLAS JOHNSON who won first place for her
wrenching drama entitled PLUMES.
The year 1927 was especially rewarding for
Spence. She was one of the playwrights whom T.
Montgomery Gregory and ALAINLOCKEfeatured
in PLAYS OFNEGROLIFE,their pioneering 1927
collection of plays by and about African Americans.
Her work appeared alongside plays by Paul Green,
EUGENE O’NEILL, Willis Richardson, JEAN
TOOMER, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Richard
Bruce, and others. In addition, she was one of 16
writers featured in the May 1927 HARLEMissue of
Carolina Magazine.Guest editor Lewis Alexander,
who included writers such as COUNTEECULLEN
and ANGELINAWELDGRIMKÉ, selected Spence’s
recent prize-winning play The Hunchfor inclusion
in the issue. Two years later, in April 1929, Spence’s
Undertow appeared in another issue of Carolina
Magazine alongside works by JOHN MATHEUS,
Willis Richardson, and LEWISALEXANDER.
An especially prolific writer during the 1920s,
Spence wrote a number of one-act plays and saw
them performed in a variety of contexts. The
KRIGWAPLAYERS, an enterprising troupe organizedSpence, Eulalie 489