Rachel: The Zine

About the Play Date 1916 First Production Myrtilla Miner Normal School, Washington D.C. (1916); Neighborhood Playhouse, New York (1917) Cast Breakdown 10 Females, 3 Males Genre Drama, Length Three acts Rachel Loving loves children and longs to be a mother, but after seeing the devastating effects of racism on the children she cares for, and learning that her father and brother were lynched (her mother kept the cause of their death secret), she resolves never to marry or procreate. “Do you think I could stand it, when my own child, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, learned the same reason for weeping?” she asks her crushed suitor, Jimmy Strong, in the play’s devastating final moments.

Do you think I could stand it, when my own child, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, learned the same reason for weeping?

GrimkĂŠ wrote Rachel partially in response to the virulent racism of The Birth of a Nation; the play was first staged in NAACP anti-lynching rallies protesting the film. GrimkĂŠ hoped that Rachel would educate audiences, particularly white audiences, about the devastating psychological effects of racism as well as the inhumanity of lynching. Published in 1920, the play did indeed have its desired educational effect.

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