Ain’t Never Been Easy

AIN’T
NEVER
BEEN
EASY

By Dan Friedman

Dedicated to Robin Kelley, who pioneered historical research and writing about radical movements in the South in the early 20th Century.

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Post Castillo Production Version
November, 2016
Copyright 2016

Characters
(In Order of Appearance)

Singer
Walter Bibb
Lavern Bibb
Harry Stein
Hosea Rivers
Bella Wicks
Jane Rush
Addie Green
Willie Green

As audience members enter the theater/performance area they should be handed the a facsimile of the Ku Klux Klan flyer distributed in the Black neighborhoods of Birmingham, Alabama in the early 1930s. The flyers read:

NEGROES BEWARE
DO NOT ATTEND COMMUNIST MEETINGS

Paid organizers for the communists are only trying to get negroes in trouble. Alabama is a good place for good negroes to live in, but it is a bad place for negroes who believe in SOCIAL EQUALITY.

The Ku Klux Klan
Is Watching You.
TAKE HEED

Tell the communist leaders to leave.
Report all communist meetings to the

Ku Klux Klan
Post Office Box 651, Birmingham, Alabama

Part 1

(Light up on Singer.)

Singer

You can’t forget what you never knowed,
But you can reap what has been sowed.

The violence, the violence of forced forgetting.

Your can’t forget what you never knowed,
But you can reap what has been sowed.

What has been sowed.
What has been sowed?

(Lights down on Singer, up on a white man, Harry Stein, sitting across a wooden table from a Black man and woman, Walter and Lavern Bibb.)

Walter
You a strange sight in our eyes.

Harry
I can imagine.

Walter
You look like my enemy and say you’re my friend.

Harry
I’m white, but there are many shades of white.

Walter
That so? Not around here.

Harry
I’m also a Jew.

Walter
Which means what?

Harry
I’m a Jew like Abraham, Jacob, Moses.

Walter
From New York, right?

Harry
Right. My parents are from Poland.

Walter
Where’s that?

Harry
The other side of the world. It’s sort of like the Alabama of Europe.

Walter
Meaning what?

Harry
Meaning the Poles hate us Jews like your whites hate the colored.

Walter
A Jew?

Harry
Yes, like Jesus.

Walter
How could Jesus be a Jew?

Harry
How could he not be? There were no Christians until after him.

Walter
I never thought of that.

Harry
And I’m also a communist.

Walter
Which means what?

Harry
Which means I’m on the side of the poor.

Walter
Which poor?

Harry
All poor.

Walter
Colored and white?

Harry
Colored and white. And it means my life is about overthrowing the system.

Walter
The share cropping system?

Harry
Yes and the capitalist system, the whole rotten set-up.

Walter
How you going to do that?

Harry
I’m not. You are, or maybe we are—the poor, working folks, sharecroppers and workers in the factories. We got to run everything so there won’t be a few rich bastards and so many people hungry and worried sick over money.

Walter
How we gonna do that?

Harry
Revolution.

Walter
You’re a troublemaker.

Harry
Yeah, I’m here to make trouble for the bosses, the banks, the racists. 

Walter
We got enough trouble of our own. You should leave.

Harry
We’re having a meeting Monday night of workers, employed or unemployed, who want to do something to get relief. 

Walter
That so?

Harry
We’re having a colored comrade from the steel mills come speak on why we need food to feed the hungry around here. I was hoping you might come.

Walter
Like I said, you ought to leave now.

(Lights down.)
(Lights up. Same setting a few minutes after Harry has left.)

Lavern
Do you know what you just did?

Walter
Stayed out of trouble.

Lavern
Maybe. But you throwed out of your home, out of our home, the first white man you ever met was willing to stand up with us.

Walter
He’s a Jew, which I don’t really give a rat’s ass about, and a communist, which I ain’t too dumb to know will get him, and us, killed.

Lavern
Call him what you want…

Walter
That’s what he called himself.

Lavern
Call him what you want, the way I see it, he’s the Union Army come back to finish the job. You don’t throw the Union Army out. You join it.

Walter
He’s crazy. Now you crazy too.

Lavern
I’m crazy alright, crazy with worry, like he said. You got a job, I keep house for a white lady and we still can’t feed the kids right. I’m crazy with shame that we gotta put the children to bed some nights with nothing to eat. I’m crazy enough to think you ought be listening to that crazy white man. 

Walter
I told you, Lavern, he’ll get us killed.

Lavern
Ain’t you noticed we been dying all along? 

Walter
I ain’t dying.

Lavern
Ain’t you?

Walter
You want me to wind up like Uncle Nate?

Lavern
They lynch us when they want to, and they starve us now and forever.

Walter
The Union Army had guns. What’s he got?

Lavern
He’s got an idea that we might make this revolution he talking about. That’s a beautiful idea. Sounds fine to me, a lot better than this.

Walter
Dreams are dangerous, Lavern. You ought to know that.

Lavern
I heard they made a revolution of poor people in Russia, them communists.

Walter
This ain’t Russia. This is Alabama.

Lavern
I have a mind to go that meeting by myself.

Walter
Jesus Lord, protect us. We’ll go together.

(Lights out on Lavern and Walter.)
(Lights up Hosea Rivers addressing a meeting.)

Hosea
And so brothers and sisters, we have a choice. Get up off our knees or stay enslaved by fear and cower under the whip of hunger. 

When we stand up we will not be alone. Oh no, we are not alone. Up in Lee and Tallapoosa Counties the croppers went on strike, every one of them, praise the Lord, found the courage to stand up—crosses were burned, guns were pulled, three organizers were shot—but our brothers and sisters in the Share Croppers Union stuck it out, Praise the Lord, and the landlords were forced to up the rate to seventy-five cents for a hundred pounds of cotton. 

And up in Gaston, North Carolina, the textile workers, Black and white. Yes, you heard me right, black and white, them that the bosses call niggers and white trash, they done walked out together. Shut them mills down. That ain’t ever happened before here in Dixie. Never before. We communist done organized that—Great God Almighty. 

I tell you brothers and sisters, comrades, I tell you: get off your knees tonight and who knows what you gonna organize in the morning? Get off your knees tonight, and who knows what you liberate in the morning? Get off your knees tonight, so the sun can rise on a new day tomorrow. A new day is dawning, a new world coming. It’s coming if we organize it. We got the power; together we got the power. If we rise up together we got the power. 

Solidarity, that’s our holy word. Solidarity forever. For his truth goes marching on. What truth I’m talking about? John Brown’s truth. He captured Harper’s Ferry with nineteen men so true, black and white together, and they frightened Old Virginia till she trembled through and through. They hung him for a traitor, they themselves the traitor crew. Yes, his truth goes marching on. It’s marching right here, right now. Right here in Birmingham, right here in Alabama, right here in the deep dark blood soaked devilish heart of Dixie. His truth, the truth of freedom and equal rights for all, the truth that the rich got rich off our sweat and blood, the truth of sticking together and fighting for what’s ours. And make no mistake, it is ours, comrades, it is. Who done built this country? We did! Who planted and picked the cotton? We did! Who laid the railroad lines? We did! Who weaving the cloth and pouring the steel today? We are. It’s our country, brothers and sisters, because we built it. Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made. We locked out. We can’t find a job and if we do find one it don’t pay enough to cover the rent and put food on the table. They pay the colored less than the whites, so the whites be scared we be taking their jobs and we be scared we ain’t never getting another job and we be fighting each other over their scraps like a pack of hungry dogs. Instead, we, black and white, should be fighting the bosses. They’ve taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn. Yet we on the outside looking in. They say it’s all theirs and we got to scrape and bow just to stay alive. Something wrong, comrades. Something very wrong,

I ain’t saying it’s easy. Lord no. But what’s ever been easy for us? What’s ever come to us we ain’t had to fight for it? 

(Lights up. Lavern and Walter s home. Lavern and Bella at the wooden table.) 

Lavern
Sorry about the coffee. Mostly chicory. Get it in the woods. Coffee so expensive.

Bella
I like it. Thanks for having me over.

Lavern
Glad to have you. Don’t have much time for. You know. This. What we’re doing. Socializing.

Bella
At the meeting you spoke up. I like that.

Lavern
Well. Thanks. I always. Hoped.cYou know. That there. That we. Could. Could do something. Never knew anybody to do it though.

Bella
Something?

Lavern
Something beyond. Not beyond. Other, I guess. Other than praying.

Bella
We do pray a lot, don’t we?

Lavern
Nothing wrong with that.

Bella
Didn’t say there was. Can’t hurt.

Lavern
Right. But. Maybe we got our eyes focused so much on the Lord. Not the Lord; can’t focus enough on the Lord. But Death. Yeah death and dying. On what comes next. Maybe we don’t get to. You know. Live enough.

Bella
Never heard it put that way before.

Lavern
Never said it before. You think I’m being blasphemous? 

Bella
Hell no. I ain’t a church going gal. Everybody knows that.

Lavern
I don’t know nothing about you ‘cept I met you at that meeting. What you do?

Bella
I work in the Avindale Laundry over on 41st. Do all the sheets and towels for the hotels in town.

Lavern
I hear that’s hot work.

Bella
No hotter than the mills, I reckon. 

Lavern
My husband works at Republic Steel. Yours?

Bella
Ain’t got one.

Lavern
Oh, I’m sorry. You a widow?

Bella
Nope, never wanted one.

Lavern
What’s wanting got to do with it? It just sort of happens, don’t it?

Bella
Not to me. Never wanted a man and kids. A colored woman got enough to deal with in this world without all that. 

Lavern
What kind of woman are you?

Bella
An organizer.

Lavern
You with the Communist Party?

(Bella nods yes.)

I figured.

Bella
We need more.

Lavern
Organizers?

Bella
Yeah. Especially women organizers. We can get places the men can’t. What you do?

Lavern
Me? I’m a domestic. 

Bella
See? You can hear what the rich white folks saying. A man can’t get all up in there.

Lavern
You asking me?

Bella
I am.

Lavern
Yes.

Bella
Yes? You don’t know what it all means yet.

Lavern
I got a sense.

Bella
You ain’t scared?

Lavern
Course I’m scared, but I’m always scared.

Bella
Don’t you want to think it over?

Lavern
I’ve been thinking it over ever for a while now, and the way I see it, you communists the only ones doing anything for colored folks. And doing here in Alabama? That takes guts. You probably know this. But a white man come to our house a few weeks back to talk with my husband.

Bella
That be Harry Stein.

Lavern
Yeah. Who does that?

Bella
We do that.

Lavern
So yes.

Bella
Okay. Lavern Bibb, welcome to the Communist Party of Alabama.

Lavern
It’s that easy?

Bella
That’s the easy part. Now comes the hard work. You’ll get an assignment. Probably with the Unemployed Council. Women doing a lot of that organizing here in Birmingham. And there’s dues. Not much. Two cents a month. Got to pay for things, you know. If you can.

Lavern
Okay. Should I tell my husband?

Bella
That’s up to you. Depends on his politics, I’d say. Would he be supportive?

Lavern
He’s. Not sure. I’m not sure. He came to the meeting with me. But he don’t say much. 

Bella
Then I’d keep this to yourself. For now.

Lavern
Okay. Got it.

Bella
We meet every Wednesday night at somebody’s house. We keep moving it around so the sheriff don’t find us.

Lavern
How will I know where?

Bella
We’ll let you know. We got ways of getting the word out. Expect some visits. Mostly at night.

Lavern
Alright.

Bella
One Wednesday we talk party business, the organizing and all that. On the other Wednesday we read our paper, The Southern Worker, and talk about what’s going on in the world.

Lavern
Oh. That’s. Well. I can’t read.

Bella
That’s okay. We read it together. Out loud.

(Lights down on Lavern and Bella.)
(Lights up on Bella and Hosea.)

Bella
How come your wife never comes to the meetings, Comrade Rivers?

Hosea
My wife?

Bella
You got one, right?

Hosea
Of course. She, she’s not interested in politics.

Bella
She’s interested in you?

Hosea
Of course she is. She married me.

Bella
How can she be interested in you and not interested in politics? That’s what you’re about. You’re a revolutionary.

Hosea
I wasn’t when we got married. I was just a sharecropper and a lay preacher.

Bella
You still a lay preacher.

Hosea
I guess you right about that, but I preach a very different gospel.

Bella
And she hasn’t converted?

Hosea
It’s not that exactly. She supports socialism.

Bella
What is it then? Exactly?

Hosea
We got two kids. She got the family to run.

Bella
And you got the party to run?

Hosea
Yes.

Bella
And what’s the contradiction? Isn’t the family part of the revolution?

Hosea
Can’t say I’ve thought much on that. Family’s for taking care of the children seems to me.

Bella
And isn’t organizing them to be revolutionaries part of taking care of them?

Hosea

You’re running way a head of me, Comrade Bella.

Bella
Ain’t this a time for Rushing up?

Hosea
Well, then I don’t think I can keep up with you.

Bella
Maybe you can. Maybe you can’t. But, the way I see it, since we’re changing the world, shouldn’t our families be changing too?

Hosea
I reckon. But I can’t change my wife.

Bella
 I’d love to meet her sometime.

(Lights down on Hosea and Bella.)
(Lights up on Walter and Lavern)

Walter
I tell you, I don’t like it. You already been to a meeting three nights this week.

Lavern
When I told you I joined the Party, we talked about me being busy. A lot of people need a lot of organizing.

Walter
Lavern, we got three children sleeping in there.

Lavern
I fixed them, and you, dinner best I could every night, ain’t I?

Walter
I ain’t saying you didn’t.

Lavern
I got the clothes washed and set out to dry.

Walter
Yeah, you did. But, you know, Charmaine, she woke up last night coughing while you were out. 

Lavern
And you gave her the herb tea like I told you to do, right?

Walter
I did, but Lavern, that ain’t my job.

Lavern
Ain’t your job? Taking care of your child ain’t your job? 

Walter
You know what I mean; you’re her mama.

Lavern
Yes I am and you’re her daddy and neither of us is able to give those children what they need and that’s why I go to meetings every night, so we can do something about this system that has you working at the foundry and we still hungry at the end of the week.

Walter
Lavern, I understand all that.

Lavern
Don’t sound like you do.

Walter
Lavern, I’m missing you.

Lavern
Alright, Walter, alright. I can hear that. If you missing me, then you should join the Party too. Because then we maybe can split up the meetings and the sitting with the young ones. Maybe even have some of those meetings here.

Walter
That ain’t who I am. I’m no revolutionary. I’m just a tired colored man who needs to keep his job at the mill.

Lavern
Good luck with that, sitting around missing me, that won’t keep you or anyone else’s job.

Walter
That ain’t fair, Lavern.

Lavern
Walter, this is the first time I ever felt good about me, first time I even began to know a little bit what hope tastes like. We’re either in this together or we probably ain’t staying together at all, cause I’m not leaving off the struggle now. 

Walter
Okay, woman. I don’t like it, but I got it. You be careful, anything happen to you, me and the kids would…

(Lights down on Walter and Lavern.)

Part 2

(Lights up on the Singer.)

Singer
Paul and Cyrus bound in jail, 
Had no money for to go their bail.

Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.
Hold on, Hold on, keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.

The only thing we done wrong
Was staying in the wilderness too long.
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.

The only thing we done right,
Was the day we begun to fight.
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.

Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.
Hold on, Hold on, keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.

(Lights up on Walter and Hosea.)

Walter
There she is, this white lady, I mean a rich white lady, I ain’t talking no Red Neck here. And the police are wading into the crowd, swinging their clubs and cursing and arresting everyone they can grab. And she stands up on the running board of a car and she yells, real loud, “Fellow workers, this is how they do us!” And the cops grab her and throw her in the paddy wagon. And I hear one of the police say, “You want integration, you communist bitch? You got it. You gonna rot in jail with all these niggers!” And the truck pulled off.

Hosea
That was Jane Rush.

Walter
Who’s that?

Hosea
Her daddy owned the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and going way back her great, great, great granddaddy was George Washington’s personal doctor.

Walter
Truth?

Hosea
God’s own.

Walter
How’d she become a communist?

Hosea
Her mother sent her off to Vienna to study and she came back as Red as Lenin.

Walter
We live in strange times.

Hosea
Strange and wonderful times.

(Lights out on Hosea and Walter.)
(Lights up on Addie Green and Jane Rush in the Birmingham Jail.)

Addie
You hard for me to see. In my mind.

Jane
Yes?

Addie
I see you with my eyes, here in jail.

Jane
Yes, I’m here.

Addie
Yeah, with me and all these colored. So it don’t. Fit.

Jane
Right, I understand.

Addie
I don’t.

Jane
I’m a communist.

Addie
That’s what they say. You look like a rich white lady to me.

Jane
I am.

Addie
I heard communists supposed to be for poor folks.

Jane
We are.

Addie
Alright then, why? That’s another thing I can’t see.

Jane
What?

Addie
You got what you need.

Jane
And more.

Addie
Yeah. And so why you here?

Jane
Everyone should have what they need.

Addie
That’s what I heard you, ah, you communists, are saying.

Jane
We are. Now you heard it from me.

Addie
They saying you communists think whites and coloreds should be marrying up each other.

Jane
If they want to. Anybody should marry who they want.

Addie
If you don’t mind me saying so, you crazy.

Jane
A lot of people think so.

Addie
That why they put you here?

Jane
Yeah, they think I’m crazy. But I’m here because I helped organize the May Day Demonstration. People starving, they need relief. The United States Constitution says we have the right to demonstrate peacefully. The State of Alabama does not.

Addie
That Constitution of yours never took hold down here.

Jane
That’s for sure, not for colored people.

Addie
You must seem a traitor to their way of seeing.

Jane
No doubt. To my way of seeing too. I am a traitor to my class.

Addie
Why you doing this?

Jane
Out of loyalty to you. I want to join the human race.

Addie
Welcome to the Birmingham Jail.

(Lights out on Jane and Addie.)
(Lights up on Lavern, Harry and Hosea.)

Lavern
Her momma put up the money for her bail and she turned it down?

Harry
Flat.

Hosea
Said she’d serve her two weeks like everyone else arrested at the rally.

Harry
That’s the message she sent. I didn’t get to see her. It really pissed off Bull Connor and the other deputies.

Hosea
I bet.

Lavern
We heard anything about Bella?

Hosea
She got out a note saying she’s doing fine. She also said they put Comrade Rush is solitary.

Harry
Sons of bitches.

Lavern
I reckon it scares them awful bad to have a rich white Red chatting it up with all them colored gals.

Hosea
She’ll be fine. She tougher than she looks.

Harry
Sons of bitches.

Hosea
You in Birmingham now, Comrade Stein. This is how it be.

(Lights down on Lavern, Harry and Hosea.)
(Lights up on Addie and Bella in Birmingham Jail.)

Addie
You in here for that communist relief rally too?

Bella
Yeah, I’m working with the Birmingham Unemployed Council. People starving; we need relief. 

Addie
I ain’t arguing. Lord knows we need the relief. Fact is, I’ve met a mess of you all in here and think you got a lot of guts. 

Bella
Who else you met in here from the rally?

Addie
I met Miss Jane, the white lady.

Bella
Jane Rush. 

Addie
Yeah that’s her. She was a sight to see, in here with us colored.

Bella
What you in here for?

Addie
Me? Not no demonstration. I don’t know nothing about politics. White lady I worked for said I stole some of her silverware.

Bella
Did ya?

Addie
Well, sure, some. I hocked it so me and my man, Willie, could pay the rent. But she a bitch and called the police on me. I got three months up in here.

Bella
What’s your name?

Addie
Addie. Addie Green. You?

Bella
Bella Wicks. Where you from Addie? Most every colored person in Birmingham these days from somewhere else.

Addie
Ain’t that a fact? Everybody be looking for work. Me and Willie, we come from way up in the country, Parchment Plantation they call it, up near Reeltown. We was tentured, our families, you know, share cropping for Captain Parchment. Willie and me, we knew each other since we was little bitty babies. Our families lived close, couple miles up the road from each other and we always played together. And, you know, as we got bigger, we just sort of knew we loved each other. 

Anyhow, when I was getting up to about 14, Captain Parchment, he got to noticing me. I was pretty, I guess.

Bella
Still are.

Addie
Yeah, but you know, when you 14 you ripe, you smooth, you ain’t yet got worn down none. And my mama and daddy, and Willie, we all knew when the Captain want a black girl, he get her. So one night me and Willie we let out for Memphis. We hopped a freight and he took his guitar. See, Willie, he play guitar real good, so we figured he could make money with his guitar up in Memphis. And we was right, for a while.

Willie was playing with one of them bands, jug bands they call ‘em up there. He be playing in the saloons every weekend and I took in laundry during the week and we was doing okay. Mostly. But you see, playing in the joints, well people be drinking. And when people, especially men, get to drinking, the anger they been pressing down in their hearts and bellies all week, well, it all sort of bubbles up, spills all over and the demons be loosed and the men start fighting each other.

Bella
Who they’re really angry at—the white boss—he don’t get hurt.

Addie
God’s truth, we be beating and slicing and stabbing each other, white man laughing. And, well, that’s what happened. Willie he got stabbed right between the ribs and we was both scared he was gonna die. So when he got better, he said, “No more playing in the joot joints. If I’m gonna be killed, I want to be killed for something that means something, not over no card game.” His brother had got a job in the steel mills here, so we caught a freight here and he’s been working in the mills the last few years.

Bella
He okay with that?

Addie
Oh no, he hates it. He says the mills is just like what the preachers call Hell. All fire and smoke, liquid steel and sulfur. If he’s gonna go to Hell when he dies, he says, he sure don’t want to spend his life there too. But what he gonna do? We got to eat. Even with him working there, I got to work for the white folks and even with that, well, you know, I have to lift some silverware now and then.

Bella
He still play guitar?

Addie
Sure does. He plays some for parties on Saturday nights. Sometimes. Loves his music. I love it too.

Bella
When you get? outta here, what you gonna do?

Addie
I sure don’t know. I’ll be on the blacklist. No white folks in Birmingham will hire me after this.

Bella
Look me up. Maybe I can get you a job in the laundry where I work. They’ll take me back; I know how that laundry work better than the boss.

Addie
That’s mighty kind of you. One thing I know is how to wash clothes.

Bella
This an industrial laundry. It ain’t nothing like washing in somebody’s house, but I’ll teach you.

(Lights out on Addie and Bella.)
(Lights up on Jane Rush and Harry Stein in Jane’s house.)

Jane
Welcome to my home, Comrade Stein.

Harry
Nice place you got here. Real nice.

Jane
Thank you. Would you like some sweet tea?

Harry
Sure. I do like that stuff. Never had iced tea till I came South. We drink it hot.

Jane
As far as we Southerners are concerned, cooling off is part of the pleasure of the tea.

Harry
Yeah, I’ll take iced anything, any time it’s offered.

Jane
You’re the comrade they sent to bail me out last week?

Harry
Yeah, we figured there’d be less trouble if it was a white guy come to get you. I even wore a tie. When you refused to leave and said you wanted to serve your time like everyone else, the faces on those old boys turned as red as a radishes. I loved it, had to bite my tongue not to laugh. 

Jane
We were laughing in the cells too. 

Harry
Hear they put you in solitary after that.

Jane
 They did, indeed.

Harry
That wasn’t funny.

Jane
Not funny, but I’m no worse off for it. Nice to finally meet you.

Harry
Thanks. Nice to meet you too. I’ve heard about you, of course, but, well, here you are. 

Jane
Yes. I am.

Harry
Yes, you are. And, well, I didn’t expect you to be such a looker.

Jane
Are you always so forward?

Harry
I don’t get the chance much.

Jane
I’ve heard about you too. You’re from New York.

Harry
The Bronx. Heard of it?

Jane
Of course. After my parents divorced, my mother and I lived on 87th Street on the Upper West Side for a few years.

Harry
No shit? 

Jane
Yeah. My mother’s always been a free thinker. That’s what bothered my daddy so much, I guess. She thought New York would be good for me and my brother. What does your family do?

Harry
My mother’s a seamstress, my father, a house painter, both union.

Jane
Jewish?

Harry
Oh yeah, Pop’s from Bialystok, Poland, my mother from Kiev.

Jane
Nothing so interesting on this end, I’m from Montgomery.

Harry
I heard, Southern aristocracy from back before the American Revolution, the first one, that is.

Jane
Yes.

Harry
So? How’d you wind up a Red?

Jane
The world. 

Harr
Meaning what?

Jane
It never felt right to me. I had no way to understand it, but it never felt right that a few white people should live (indicating her surroundings) like this, while most folks, colored and white, don’t have enough to live decent lives. After New York, my mother encouraged me to go to Vienna to study at the university. That’s where I learned about Marx: “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” It made perfect sense to me. That’s something to live and die for. So I joined up. 

Harry
Your restore my faith in humanity.

Jane
Don’t pull that malarkey on me, Comrade Stein. You’ve never lost your faith in humanity. If you had, you wouldn’t be a communist.

Harry
You’re not only a looker, you’re a mighty smart cookie, Comrade Rush. I suppose we ought get down to business.

Jane
Here’s the envelope you came for.

Harry
Thanks, everyone appreciates this. It helps a lot.

Jane
From each according to his ability. It’s been a pleasure, Comrade Stein. Welcome to Alabama.

Harry
Yeah, it’s been swell.

(They shake hands. Lights down.)
(Lights up on Bella and Lavern. They have a copy of The Southern Worker.)

Bella
Okay, Lavern, let’s see what you can do with this letter Comrade Helen Longs from Montgomery sent to the Southern Worker about what happened after she got arrested for distributing those leaflets.

Lavern

(Reading slowly with effort) 

“Three of them had rubber hoses, one had a strap and one had a blackjack. The biggest one of the men tried to make me lie down but I wouldn’t. Then they hit me with the hose and with the strap with such force as almost knock me down but when I didn’t fall the biggest man finally grabbed me and threw me down. While they had me on the floor one of them would beat me until he got tired and then another one would start in. Then two or three would beat me at the same time until I nearly lost consciousness.”

Bella
I swear, you’ve learned to read faster than anyone I ever knew.

Lavern
I never would have learned nothing if it weren’t for you. And the Party.

Bella
Well, that speaks to another thing, Lavern. I’ve never seen anyone take to organizing as quick as you have. You’ve become a leader.

Lavern
Thank you, Bella. Coming from you, that means so much. You’re my leader. The way I see it, it’s organize or starve, and I ain’t gonna let none of my kids, or no one else’s starve. If I got any say. And the thing is, Bella, now I do have a say. First time ever I’ve had a say. A way. To make a difference. When I was a little girl my grandmother and mother was the bosses. And then, when I married Walter, he was the boss. And, of course, the white man been the real boss all along. And I had to. Well, I had to survive. Now. Now, thanks to what we’re building here in Birmingham. All over. In New York. In Russia. Now you telling me those Chinese are making a revolution too. Now, thanks to that, all that, I can be my own boss. But that’s not right, is it? No boss. That’s what we. I. Want. No boss. No boss at all. Now thanks to you and communism I’m learning I can change things, including me. Everything. I can change everything. No. Not me, we. I’m a part of we. I had no power. I didn’t even know that word. Power. I did what I had to do. Now I’m. I have power. Not have. You don’t have power. You do it. What’s that word you use? Exercise. Now I exercise power. It’s made me a different kind of hungry. Not for food. I still don’t get enough of that, but this hungry I love. I’m hungry for ideas. That’s why I learned reading so fast. I’m hungry to learn how this. All this. The world. Works.

(Bella kisses Lavern on the lips.)

What was that?

Bella
That, that was, love. I loved what you were saying, Lavern.

Lavern
What I was saying?

Bella
I think it made me love you.

Lavern
Thank you.

Bella
You’re welcome.

Lavern
I. I never. I mean. I love learning to read. 

Bella
I can see that. 

Lavern
I mean.

Bella
You mean what?

Lavern
I mean. That kiss. Was. It was. It was kind. Not easy to be kind. Not in this world.

Bella
We got to try.

Lavern
You right. But. Well, I never. Never been kissed. Not like that. Never been kissed by a woman. 

Bella
You okay with that?

(Lavern stands up. Kisses Bella on the lips. Sits back down. They look at each other.)
(Enter Walter.)

Walter, what you doing home in the middle of the day?

Walter
They fired me. Said my wife’s a Russian Red.

Lavern
Oh Lord Jesus!

Walter
Bella, I’m glad you’re here. If I’m going to lose my job for being a Red, I figure I ought to be one. How do I sign up?

(Lights down on Bella, Lavern and Walter.)
(Lights up on Addie and Willie Green.)

Willie
That’s wild Addie, crazy wild. You meet up with the Reds in the Birmingham Jail and I be meeting them at Republic Steel. I find ‘em in Hell and you find them in prison. Seems like they right where they ought to be.

Addie
What you mean?

Willie
I mean they where they need to be.

Addie
You like ‘em, don’t you Willie?

Willie
I hardly know ‘em, but I like it that they think they can change things. Hardly anyone thinks like that. Most folks scared to even think that, never mind doing something about it. 

Addie
Yeah, they’re different. 

Willie
This guy, Hosea Rivers, he works in the plant with me. He’s organizing for the union, on the lowdown, of course. I hear he used to be a preacher. A lay preacher, one of those jackleg preachers, never went to school for it or nothing, but preached when the spirit took hold of him.

Addie
Now another spirit took hold of him.

Willie
That a fact. The white folks would say it be the Devil got his heart now. But I kind of like that. White man’s devil just might be our friend.

Addie
Willie, don’t be talking like that. Only one Devil.

Willie
Well the Reds, they raising hell, ain’t they? I just saying this Rivers fella, he got balls. He’s smart and he’s living for something more than the next paycheck. 

Addie
Yeah, I think these communist are smart, Willie, real smart. This gal Bella Wicks I met in jail, she the smartest colored woman I ever met.

Willie
Yeah, they’re smart, maybe too smart. Smart can get a nigger in a lot of trouble.

Addie
Being dumb seems to keep us in a lot of trouble too.

Willie
Addie, you pretty smart yourself. For a country girl.

Addie
She’s calm too. I never met a colored gal who, well, who just seemed okay with who she is, know what I’m saying?

Willie
I do. Only time I’m okay with who I am is when I’m playing my guitar.

Addie
Right, like this communism be her guitar.

Willie
Wild!

Addie
You wanna talk wild? The rich white lady communist, now she wild.

Willie
I heard about her, up in the face of the police and all.

Addie
This communism must be mighty powerful stuff to bring her around to our side.

Willie
Powerful shit.

Addie
Willie, what we gonna do?

Willie
About what?

Addie
About everything.

Willie
Don’t know. We run to Memphis. Memphis almost killed me. We run to Birmingham, the steel mills killing me.

Addie
I guess I mean, what we gonna do about the communists?

Willie
We get to know them. Find out what they about. They the most interesting folks we’ve met, right?

Addie
By a country mile.

Willie
They like a big band to play in, a real big band. Much better than playing solo. Nobody hears me when I play guitar alone.

Addie
I do.

Willie
Of course. You do, and I love you for it. But at a party can’t nobody hear me.

Addie
In a band this big, everyone hears you.

Willie
They being heard around the world.

Addie
What kind of music they playing?

Willie
That’s what we have to find out.

(Light down on Addie and Willie.)

Part 3

(Lights up on Singer.)

Singer
Sowing on the mountain, reaping in the valley,
Sowing on the mountain, reaping in the valley,
You got to reap just what you sow.

God gave Noah the rainbow sign,
God gave Noah the rainbow sign,
Won’t be water but fire next time.

Won’t be water, but fire next time, Lord,
Won’t be water, but fire next time,
Won’t be water, but fire next time.
You got to reap just what you sow.

(Stage divided. In one area Addie Green, Bella Wicks and Lavern Bibb, in the other Hosea Rivers and Willie Green.)

Bella
So now that you’re in the party, we assigning you to work with Lavern in the Unemployed Council.

Addie
Okay, what’s it mean? Exactly?

Lavern
We keep our eyes and ears open and we always be busy bodies. You got to go around, know everybody. Got to know who’s got what trouble coming down the line.

Addie
I can do that. I used to be shy back in the country, but I learned that being shy just leaves you alone with yourself.

Lavern
I like how you put things, Addie. You got a way with words.

Addie
Thank you, Miss Lavern.

Willie
Okay. So what do I do now?

Hosea
You begin talking to the guys in the mill.

Willie
You know me, Hosea, I’m always talking to the guys.

Hosea
Yeah, you’re Mr. Friendly. All the colored like you, even some of the white boys, but now you’re not just talking jive.

Willie
Now I’m taking union?

Hosea
Yeah, the union, the Scottsboro Boys, all of it. But you got to be careful.

Willie
Careful how?

Hosea
To start with, don’t just talk. Organizing is more about listening than talking. Listen to what the boys are saying, how they’re saying it, how they’re standing, what they’re doing with their eyes.

Willie
Their eyes?

Hosea
Yeah, eyes tell you a lot. Do they look at you or at the ground? Are they shifting around? That’s what I mean by careful. The plant’s full of company stool pigeons.

Willie
That why you took so long to invite me into the party? You thought I might be a fink?

Hosea
It ain’t been so long, Willie, but yeah, I had to make sure you were an okay guy. You know we at war. You’re a natural born organizer, like I said, Mr. Friendly. I had to make sure you was our Mr. Friendly.

Bella
The point is, you don’t wait for people to come to you. When a family got no food and the relief don’t give them the groceries they been promised or their coal order don’t come through, you got to know that.

Addie
Then what?

Lavern
Then you make it your business to visit that family, talk with the wife. In the Unemployed Council, we mostly be working with the women, and if she’s willing, then we work with her. If she says, “No, I’d rather handle it myself,” then we hands off. Don’t bother them. We work with those who want to work with us.

Addie
Got it. So when they say yes?

Lavern
We get the neighbors rounded up and have a little meeting. People on the block, their friends, people right around them, the folks who know they ain’t got no food to eat. You form them into a committee and your committee goes and visits. You ask her what’s going down. You listen. You don’t just jump up and say what to do. You let the neighbors talk about it for a while and then you improvise, that’s the word Willie uses for what his jug band did up in Memphis, right? Improvise. Good word. Someone in the committee might say, and they almost always do, “If she wants to go back down to the relief office, I suggest we have the committee go with her.” 

Bella
And then, if the family says, “I would appreciate it,” we ask who will volunteer.

Willie
Okay, I won’t be running my mouth. No more jive talk.

Hosea
I didn’t say that, you still Willie Green.

Willie
I’m the new Willie Green. I’ll be listening real hard and watching their eyes, and I, you know, sure as hell, I’ll keep my eyes on the prize.

Lavern
Now you got this group set up, you can’t just walk down to the relief office and mouth off. You got to know what you want to do when you get down there. You have a discussion. We tell everybody, “Keep a calm head. You get angry, you get thrown out of the relief office, maybe even arrested.” So we go down there and say real polite, “We come to find out why so-and-so ain’t got the food she was promised.” You don’t go in there saying, “We demand this and we demand that!” We talk to the relief agents like they’re decent people, and most of them, colored or white, are. So mostly we get results.

Bella
Then we organize a meeting in someone’s house. If we rent a hall, the police bound to come and break it up. So we organize the follow-up meeting carefully and usually we been getting 20 or 30 people. People want to know what happened. You have someone from the committee report on what happened and have someone from the family say something and then throw it open for discussion. If there ain’t already an Unemployed Council on that block, you sign people up and form one then and there.

Lavern
That’s how we been building the Unemployed Council.

Bella
Mind you, we didn’t know what we were doing when we started. We made a lot of mistakes and sort of figured it out as we went along.

Addie
You improvised.

Bella
Yes, I reckon we did.

Hosea
Mind you, there ain’t always a right way to be organizing. You take what the boys give you and you try to build something with it.

Willie
Like I do when I’m playing in a band.

Hosea
Yes, I reckon it be something like that.

Addie
We do the same with the whites?

Lavern
They’re more scared to stick their necks out. Once they start working with the colored they’re called Reds and that means trouble, big capital T trouble. 

Willie
What about talking with the white boys?

Hosea
I don’t got to tell you what being white means to these crackers. Same time, we need more white workers in the party. We almost all Black down here, so you got to cultivate them, like a cotton crop, see which ones you can bring along.

Lavern
If a white family need the help and be willing to take it, we there. Last month this white guy, Mac Kurth’s his name, over on Twenty Ninth Avenue used to work at the Drummond coal mine before he got laid off. His family got evicted. So after the police put them out on the street, a group from the Council, four of us colored and one white, we went and put the furniture back in their house. Then we got him to go with us down to the welfare to see if they’d give him money for his rent, and damned if they didn’t.

Addie
Did he join the Party?

Bella
No, not yet, but he’s active in the Unemployed Council, working to get more whites involved.

Addie
The music is spreading.

Lavern
The music?

Addie
That’s what I call our organizing.

Lavern
Like I say, you got a way with words.

Hosea
Willie, can you bring your guitar to the next meeting? It’s always good to end a meeting with a song.

Willie
Why, I’d be happy to, comrade, happy and honored.

(Lights down on Addie, Lavern, Bella, Hosea and Willie.)
(Lights up on Harry, Hosea and Bella.)

Harry
What’s the matter Hosie?

Hosea
Who says something’s the matter?

Bella
You got an easy face to read.

Hosea
I don’t want to talk about it.

Harry
Why not?

Hosea
It’s personal.

Bella
It’s got to do with your wife, don’t it?

Hosea
How’d you know that?

Bella
What other personal life you got?

Harry
Is Clara okay?

Hosea
She left.

Bella
Where’d she go?

Hosea
To her brother’s in Atlanta.

Bella
The minister? 

Hosea
Yeah, he never did like me, especially after I got political.

Bella
And the kids?

Hosea
Took ‘em with her.

Harry
What the hell? Why?

Bella
Hosea and Clara haven’t been seeing the world through the same window for a while now. Ain’t that true, comrade?

Hosea
I been busy; we got a lot of work to do.

Bella
Comrade Hosea you left her out of the work, our work.

Hosea
Yeah, well, it turns out she been busy too. You know Nat Hutchins live on my street?

Bella
The railroad man?

Hosea
Yeah, well, it turns out he being her sidetrack while the mainline gone.

Bella
She’s been lonely, Hosie. What’d you expect?

Hosea
I didn’t expect nothing. I didn’t think about it.

Bella
That’s what I been saying. 

Hosea
You been saying a lot of shit Bella, maybe you ought to be minding your own business.

Harry
Don’t get angry with Bella. This is her business, you’re one of our leaders. She’s being political here, you’re…

Bella
…Acting like a man.

Hosea
I am a man.

Harry
You got to be a communist man. What happened?

Hosea
Neighbors told me about it. I didn’t want to pay it no never mind, but one night I got home from a meeting earlier than I expected and I seen someone slipping out the back. So I asked her and she said yeah and what did I care and didn’t we communists believe in free love anyway?

Harry
You didn’t hit her did you?

Hosea
No, of course not. I’m enough of a communist that I wouldn’t hit my woman.

Bella
You did do something. I see it in your eyes.

Hosea
I broke the vase her mother gave her, gave us, when we got married. I smashed it against the wall.

Harry
And then?

Hosea
And then I left. I didn’t trust myself not to do something worse. So I went for a walk.

Harry
Damn. I wish you’d said something.

Hosea
Nothing to say. Family business.

Bella
You still don’t get it do you? You’re a revolutionary and there’s no wall between family business and union business and Party business. It’s all our business.

Hosea

Yeah, well, her brother wired her the money and she and the kids got on the train to Georgia.

Harry
She’ll come back. You got to talk to her. You can use the phone at the union office.

Bella
I don’t know that Clara’s coming back, Harry, not unless Hosie uses some of his organizing talent to organize the most important person in his life.

Hosea
Is she?

Bella
What?

Hosea
Is she the most important person in my life?

(Lights down on Harry, Hosea and Bella.)
(Lights up on Addie and Willie.)

Addie
Today we got May Johnson some food for her kids. She got five and her husband disappeared last spring.

Willie
Ain’t this something, Addie, you and me?

Addie
We always been something, Willie.

Willie
We always been good-looking and hotter than August in a cotton field. Now we also a couple of communist organizers.

Addie
Strange when you think about it. A year ago I didn’t even know what a communist was. It never crossed my mind that we could do nothing except cling to each other.

Willie
Now May Johnson and lots of other folks clinging to you. Everybody saying you’re the smoothest talker in the Council.

Addie
And you and Mr. Rivers organizing the Steel Workers union right there in hell.

Willie
World going through some big changes and we’re going through it too.

Addie
What you think your momma would say?

Willie
She’d probably pray for my soul.

Addie
She was always praying for you soul. Never did like you playing that devil music.

Willie
Yeah, she was afraid of the blues. If she could hear what we’re playing now, who knows? It might shake her up, in a good way.

Addie
You scared, Willie?

Willie
A colored man in Alabama always scared. He’d be a fool not to be.

Addie
Now we red, as well as Black. Like we got a target painted on our backs.

Willie
It makes me proud, and, maybe this is strange, Addie, but I think I’m less scared. Fact is, I know it. ‘Cause now we ain’t alone.

Addie
Now we in that big band you talked about.

Willie
Right, and more and more people hearing the music.

Addie
Praise the Lord!

Willie
Or Lenin.

Addie
Willie, you so bad.

Willie
Addie, you so beautiful.

(They start making out with great passion and enthusiasm. Lights out on Willie and Addie.)
(Lights up on Willie, Hosea, Walter and Bella.)

Willie
It was a sight to see—all these crackers and the niggers at the same meeting.

Hosea
That’s what “union” means.

Willie
I guess you right about that, but, hell, I never been with so many white people before.

Hosea
And then what Stein did, I mean, we talked about it before the meeting, that it had to be integrated, but what he did with that chair…

Walter
I have to say, I do respect that man.

Hosea
And you threw him out of your house, first time you met him.

Walter
Well, I’ve learned some since then, haven’t I?

Bella
So what the hell did he do?

Hosea
Well, like Walter said, there were about a hundred white and a hundred colored. I was at the podium with Harry leading the meeting and everyone seemed copasetic. The only thing was, the colored were up in the balcony and the white workers were down stairs.

Walter
We just did that without thinking about it, I guess. Never thought not to.

Hosea
It was the start of the meeting, you know, and Harry asks everyone to quiet down and then, then he says, “The Steel Workers Organizing Committee is an integrated union. We’re fighting for all steel workers white and black.” You could hear a pin drop, you could hear a cat sigh, if there’d been a cat in that meeting hall. He let that quiet sit like a quilt for, it felt like an eternal moment, and then he says. “Our meetings ain’t segregated, I invite our colored brothers to come down and join their fellow workers.”

Walter
And we sort of looked at each other, and Willie and me and a few others stood up.

Hosea
But before we could get to the stairs, this white guy…

Willie
John Woodward, he works in the furnaces with me. I’m the one first talked union to him.

Hosea
Yeah, so this Woodward walks down the aisle straight to Harry and snarls in his face, “We don’t need no commie kike from New York coming down here tell us how to run our union.” I’m standing right next to him, my heart beating like a big bass drum.

Walter
Nobody else said nothing. Nobody moved.

Willie
And Woodward turns and starts back to his seat and Harry picks up a folding chair and brings it down on Woodward’s head. Knocks that peckerwood out cold.

Walter
And Harry looks at me and then looks at the white workers and says, “Anyone else got a problem with an integrated union?”

Hosea
And nobody says nothing.

Willie
And we colored workers, we just walked down those stairs, quiet like, and we sat in any empty chair we chose.

Walter
It was like the Red Sea opening up. Now we’ll see if Pharaoh’s Army gets drowned. That’s a whole ’nother story.

Willie
He is one cool cat, that Jew boy. And we had us a union meeting, right Hosea? Niggers and crackers, we talked through what we needed from Republic Steel and we elected us an integrated steering committee.

Walter
I wish you and Lavern were there to see it. 

Bella
A strike of the whites and coloreds together like in Gastonia?

Walter
We still far from that, Bella.

Hosea
There ain’t been a meeting like that in Alabama since Reconstruction Days. When the union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run, there can be no great power anywhere beneath the sun.

Willie
Man, you corny, Hosie. But I like it, you good corny.

Walter
We’ll see how long it lasts.

Willie
Walter, you one of the gloomiest Negroes I ever met.

(Lights down on Walter, Willie, Hosea and Bella.)
(Lights up on Jane and Harry.)

Jane
You could have gotten yourself killed.

Harry
But I didn’t.

Jane
Not yet.

Harry
No, not yet and not there at the union meeting. The white workers want the union too. The fact is they need it more than they need their racism. 

Jane
A chair on the back of his head?

Harry
There are times when you have to say no so that others can say yes.

Jane
How dialectical of you.

Harry
You make it sound sexy.

Jane
It is. But don’t you use dialectics to come on to me.

Harry
I wouldn’t know how to; I’m not even sure what dialectics is.

Jane
But you know how to flirt, Comrade Stein.

Harry
It comes naturally, and you’re pretty good at it yourself.

Jane
Very little human interaction is natural, Comrade Stein. Flirting, like racism and anti-Semitism, is a learned behavior.

Harry
Someday maybe you can explain all that to me, and what exactly dialectics is while you’re at it. For now, here’s my article for the Southern Worker on the meeting. I didn’t put in the stuff about the chair and all. I just wrote that over 200 steel workers attended and that it was an integrated meeting.

Jane
Not quite the whole truth.

Harry
I don’t want to make the white workers look like racists.

Jane
But they are, Comrade Stein.

Harry
Yeah, but maybe if we think beyond who we are, where we are, we can grow into it.

Jane
You’re being dialectical again.

Harry
Am I?

Jane
Yes. Do you really believe that?

Harry
Of course I do. And so do you. Look at us. Neither of us are who we started out to be. The fact is, we reimagined ourselves and grew into it.

Jane
I suppose we did, didn’t we?

Harry
We most certainly did. You’re a Southern Belle and I’m a tough kike from the Bronx, and here we are two communists in Birmingham. Our old selves wouldn’t have liked each other.

Jane
No, I suppose not.

Harry
And I’m imagining even more of what we could become.

Jane
I’m sure you are. Thank you, Harry, for the article. I’ll make sure it gets to the Southern Worker in Chattanooga. 

(Harry turns to leave. He turns back. They shake hands. Lights out on Jane and Harry.)
(Lights up on Bella and Lavern at Lavern and Walter’s house.)

Lavern
Bella, I really appreciate the greens and fatback. What with Walter still out of work…

Bella
Don’t say nothing. That’s what comrades do for each other.

Lavern
Yeah, I know, but I can still appreciate it, can’t I?

Bella
I suppose so Lavern, we can all use some appreciation.

(Enter Walter.)

Walter
Harry and Willie missing.

Bella
How long?

Walter
Last anyone saw them was leaving the union meeting together last night.

Lavern
Walter, load up that shotgun of ours.

Walter
Yeah, okay, but don’t get worked up. We don’t know nothing yet.

Lavern
We know.

(There is a tapping. Walter slips shells into the shotgun. There is more tapping. Walter moves toward the door.)

Walter
Who is it?

Harry

(Off stage) 

It’s me, Harry.

(Walter opens the door. Enter Harry. He has been severely beaten. Both of his hands have been smashed.)

Lavern
Oh my Lord Jesus! Harry what have they done to you?

(Walter grabs Harry and steadies him, helps him to a chair. Bella quickly shuts the door behind him.)

Harry
They grabbed Willie and me walking home after the meeting. Maybe twelve of ‘em, half of ‘em deputies. Took us to the police station. Said we were arrested for, “speaking to a public assembly of mixed races without physical barriers of separation.”

Walter
That is the law.

Harry

(Manages a pained laugh.)

Bella
Willie was with you?

Harry
Yeah, but they separated us right away. I haven’t seen him since last night.

Lavern
Oh my God, we got to let Addie know.

Bella
Harry, what did they…?

Harry
Took me to a room in the basement where, well, they did this.

(He holds up his bloodied hands.)

They said since I took such pride in being a worker, they’d make sure I’d never work again. They bashed my hands with rifle butts. Over and over. I don’t know what they did with Willie. 

Bella
Let’s not think about that now. Let’s get you to Dr. Fields. He’s the colored doctor up at Ensley. He’s helped Party people before.

Walter
How we gonna do that?

Bella
I’m gonna find out. Lavern, you find Addie. Walter, you stay here with Harry and keep your gun trained on that door.

(Addie bursts in. Walter raises his rifle.)

Addie
They set Willie on fire and left his body on the steps of the courthouse.

(Bella embraces Addie. Walter lowers his rifle. Harry slumps in the chair. The lights should stay on Lavern and Addie’s embrace. Silence as lights fade.)
(Singers and Cast seated in church. All sing.)

Cast and Singers
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored,
He has loosed the fateful lightening of His terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on.

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

John Brown died that the slaves might all be free.
John Brown died that the slaves might all be free.
John Brown died that the slaves might all be free.
But his truth goes marching on.

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

(Addie goes to the pulpit, supported by Bella and Hosea.)

Addie
To Willie the movement was like music. A big band he called it. Each of us playing our instruments. Organizing. Making music. Improvising. Creating the tune and the harmonies as we go along. Willie was friendly. Willie was funny. He was passionate. His guitar, his voice, his smile, his sad eyes. Willie was full of passion. For me. For you all, for us. For the poor and oppressed of the world. Willie, we’ll miss you. Our revenge will be to play the most beautiful music the world has ever heard.

Cast and Singers
Amen!
In our hands we hold a power greater than their hoarded gold.
Greater than the might of armies magnified a thousand-fold.
We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old,
For the Party makes us strong.
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
Solidarity forever!
For the Party makes us strong.

(Lights dimmed as the song progresses. Lights up on stage divided. Bella and Addie in one area. Jane, Harry and Hosea in the other area.)

Bella
You done good with that eulogy yesterday, real good. 

Addie
Just spoke my heart.

Bella
Now we got to get you out of town. Ain’t safe.

Addie
Ain’t never safe.

Bella
You know what I mean. The cops know you now. The party can use you up in New York to tell folks what’s happening down here.

Addie
They killed Willie and now they coming after me and you want me to run?

Bella
I want you to live.

Addie
Seems like I been running my whole life. First from Captain Parchment. Then from the bar brawlers in Memphis. Now you say I should run to New York.

Bella
I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.

Addie
You got another?

Bella
How about you going to New York so you can live to fight another day?

Addie
Running is running.

Jane
Comrade Allen up in Chattanooga could use help putting out the Southern Worker. 

Harry

(Indicating his hands.) 

I can’t do much like this, can I?

Hosea
Maybe not, but he’ll keep you safe till you’re healed up.

Harry
Yeah, if …

Jane
Dr. Fields says your hands will be okay. You’ll be working in a few months.

Hosea
Harry, we’re sending a wounded comrade behind the front lines to recover. So don’t give us any trouble.

Harry
What trouble? I’m gonna miss you is all, miss you both. A lot.

Hosea
Main thing is we don’t want you dead.

Harry
I don’t want me dead either.

Bella
You want to call it running? Okay, running’s a lot of what we colored folks have had to do. When our grandparents ran off from the plantation, that was claiming themselves for themselves. That was an act of resistance. 

Addie
That was then. This now. And I want to resist right here in Birmingham.

Bella
Okay then, you do what you think best.

Addie
Damned if I know what’s best. With Willie gone, I don’t know nothing.

Harry
When my hands heal, who knows, I might get back to Birmingham.

Jane
You’ll go where you’re needed most.

Harry
Yeah, I will.

Hosea
We all be doing what we need to do. And you need to get going.

Harry
It’s been good getting to know you, Jane. I never met anyone quite like you.

Hosea
I suspect no one has.

Jane
You’re pretty unusual yourself.

(Jane goes up to Harry, puts her hands on either side of his face and kisses him full on the lips.)

Hosea
Alright, you two, we got the car waiting.

Jane
Some comrades are out back. They’ll walk you to the car which is waiting at the curve in the road near where the old cottonwood was hit by lightning last summer. Phil Johnson, he’s a white schoolteacher in my book club, he’s waiting in the car and he’ll drive you to Tennessee. And Mac Kurth from the Council will be in the back with a gun. You’ll be there before sunup. 
Now get out of here. Fast.

(Hosea and Harry exit. Jane watches them leave.)

Bella
I don’t know much either, Addie. But I do know I’d rather you be organizing in New York City, than you winding up another dead nigger in Birmingham. 

(Addie looks long and hard at Bella.)

Addie
Bella, how can you talk like that?

Bella
How can I not, given where are and what’s happened?

(Addie starts to cry. Bella puts an arm around her.)

I got an aunt lives in Harlem. She’s going to put you up until you can find a place.

(Lights down on Addie, Bella and Jane.)

(Lights up on Walter sitting at this kitchen table, his shotgun resting on his lap. Enter Lavern, Bella and Hosea.)

Lavern
What you doing, Walter?

Walter
Sitting.

Lavern
Why you got the gun?

Walter
You’re a smart woman, Lavern. Don’t ask stupid questions.

Hosea
We just came from a meeting with the lawyers from the International Defense Fund. We’re going to hold a demonstration demanding that there be an investigation and that Willie’s killers be arrested.

Walter
Good luck with that.

Lavern
There was press from Chicago and Atlanta at the funeral. That’s never happened before.

Lavern
The country’s gonna know about Willie Green.

Walter
You don’t really think we gonna get anyone arrested, do you?

Bella
No, but with the International Labor Defense we can get some national attention, make ‘em think twice next time.

Walter
And there will be a next time.

Hosea
Before nobody could say nothing. Now we getting organized, we can fight it in the courts and in the press.

Bella
Hell, we got us our own press, and our own lawyers.

Lavern
Amen.

Walter
The law don’t work for the colored. You know that as well as me.

Hosea
Look how much the International Labor Defense has been doing for the Scottsboro Boys.

Walter
I ain’t saying it ain’t. I’m saying we got a pretty good idea who done that to Willie. And I got a very good idea how to blow their heads off.

Lavern
That’d get us all killed.

Walter
I’m just saying.

Hosea
It’s a long road ahead, Brother Walter. The Israel children wandered in the desert for forty years.

Lavern
Yes, they did, forty years.

Walter
And we’ve been lost in this American land for 300.

Lavern
We been lost, but now we’re found.

Walter
I don’t feel found. I feel the rage of those 300 years and it’s burning me up.

Bella
We got to keep organizing, no other way forward.

Lavern
Walter, why don’t you give me the gun?

Walter
I do grow weary sometimes, comrades, I do grow weary.

(Walter doesn’t give up the gun. Light slowly narrows on Walter with the rifle. Fade to black.)

THE END