#TBT - Meet Alice Childress

#TBT Feature

Alice Childress

"[Childress] called herself a ‘liberation writer’ and created strong, compassionate, often militant female characters who resisted socioeconomic conditions. Women such as Wiletta in Trouble in Mind…were rare in the African American drama of the civil rights era since they were among the few black characters to confront white antagonists onstage. Wanting to stage the racial conflict she saw happening around her, Childress was then one of the few African American playwrights to write for interracial casts."

—Kathy A. Perkins

Alice Childress working on Gullah at Third World Theater in 1984. image source playmakersrep.org

"I deal with the people I know best, which are ordinary people...I write about the intellectual poor. People who are thoughtful about their condition, people who are limited in many ways, that have been cut off from having all that they want and desire, and know that this has happened to them. I think this character has been missing a great deal of the time. From much that we see, maybe people haven’t considered them interesting enough dramatically or important enough." —Alice Childress

Alice Childress on stage image source: macdowell.org

Learning Resources >>The Life & Work of Alice Childress >>Alice Childress, Reading from Black Playwright, 1960s >>Alice Childress, The Last Woman Standing

How did Alice Childress' grandmother influence her learning and career journey? How do you think Childress influences other "liberation writers"?