'American Apartheid' performed at MLK's spiritual home

by Jennifer Johnson
The Collegian
Issue date: 9/1/07

In the same room in which Martin Luther King, Jr. was baptized at the age of 5, a collection of community leaders, local actors and GPC faculty and staff presented a thought-provoking play about race-relations set against the backdrop of a violent four-day Atlanta race riot to close out one the of most significant exhibits the National Parks Service has ever displayed.

On Saturday, August 25, in the Fellowship Hall of Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, the play American Apartheid, written by Wade Marbaugh and Dr. Paul Hudson and adapted from the 1908 novel The Law of the White Circle by Thornwell Jacobs, was presented in honor of the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot Exhibit that was on display at the National Parks Service's MLK Historical Site from September 15, 2006 through August 31, 2007.

The exhibit 'Red Was the Midnight' shed light on a "significant, major event in Atlanta History… which has largely been erased from public memory," said Dr. Clifford Kuhn of Georgia State University, who spoke on behalf of Atlanta's Coalition to Remember the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot.

"I'm not sure that Thornwell Jacobs had an audience like this in mind when he wrote The Law of the White Circle," said 'Red Was the Midnight' co-curator Dr. Clarissa Myrick-Harris of the hundred or so men and women of various ages and races.

She discussed the ending exhibit and its artifacts, which included a copy of The Law of the White Circle that was borrowed from Carrie Jacobs Henderson, Thornwell Jacobs's granddaughter. The biography of Walter White (a 13 year old boy during the riot), as well as a Sterling Brown poem called "An Old Woman Remembers" were also part of the exhibit showcasing historical documents from the African American community during that period.

Myrick-Harris, whose daughter Amina is a psychology major at GPC, had not seen any of the play's five previous readings, but had read the book on which it was based. She believed the staged reading was very entertaining. "I would have liked more direct addressing of the issues of 1906 that deal directly with 2006. The references at the end dealt in passing, but attempted to make a connection... It was an honest attempt to bring Thornwell Jacobs and his view of the world of segregation through the eyes of 21st century white liberals."

Hudson, the Business and Social Science department chair of Clarkston campus, conceived of the play after writing the article "Immovable Folkways" about Jacobs and his book in The Georgia Historical Quarterly in 1999. (The Law of the White Circle was reprinted in September 2006-with Hudson's article-for the hundred-year anniversary of the riot.)

In September of 2005, Hudson enlisted friend and playwright Marbaugh to develop the story after outlining Jacobs' plot over the phone. Hudson provided "awesome historical research on W.E.B. Du Bois [a character in the play], the Flatiron Building… he added a layer of richness to the story. My primary contribution was to modernize the story, develop the characters and themes that Jacobs couldn't with the limited viewpoint of his times," said Marbaugh, who Hudson maintains wrote more than 80% of the play. The two collaborated on several aspects of the production that tells the story of Lola, the daughter of an octoroon (a person who is one eighth black), attempting to pass for her white half-sister during a time when a class of educated and enterprising blacks began to threaten the long-standing social order of the South. Just over 100 years ago in Atlanta, a mob of white men beat and killed African Americans and extensively damaged black-owned businesses in a the blood four-day period known as the Atlanta Race Riot.

After the last staged reading at Clarkston campus in April, said Marbaugh, he and director Michael Chechopoulos discussed another performance. Chechopoulos unilaterally approached the National Parks Service after viewing the Race Riot exhibit.

During a family vacation, Marbaugh received a call from Chechopoulos (in the NPS's publicity office) telling him the organization wanted to partner with them in the production. Marbaugh expressed his excitement with whoops and hollers from the backseat of his car to the surprise of his wife and daughters.
The actors, dubbed the Being Human Players and assembled for this specific event, were both local actors and GPC faculty and staff. Marbaugh works for the Human Resources department, director Michael Chechopoulos works at the Clarkston campus, and Athena Jones, an Los Angeles native with a few community productions under her belt, also works in Human Resources. Music and vocals for American Apartheid were provided by Fire Management program coordinator Derwin Daniels as well as Daniel Moore Jr. and ensemble. The staged reading included props and scripts and multiple roles for the actors. For this special performance, noted actor Elisabeth Omilami (daughter of the late Hosea L. Williams) portrayed Lola's mother. In an email to Marbaugh, Omilami said that participating in American Apartheid in this historic setting was "was an inspiring moment."

Among the audience that Saturday afternoon was GPC Dean Lisa Fowler and professor Debra Constable, who seemed to agree with Omilami. "It was awakening, enlightening and it helps to understand the history of Atlanta," said Constable.

Ty Stone, a social work major who took Hudson's United States History course, had seen the staged reading at the Clarkston campus in the spring. "I was still as sucked into it as I was before," she said.

Dwayne Carl, who Marbaugh tapped after seeing the actor/singer in last year's GPC production of Big River, commented about the audience's reactions each time they've had a reading. "Different audiences laugh at different things. Older audiences, younger audiences, black, white-they all got it. The underlying message is the same… and being here right now, the significance of having it here-its truly amazing."

"That performance and the audience reaction was a great moment in the history of my theater experience," Marbaugh said of the Ebenezer reading. Both writers were pleased with the reception American Apartheid received. A smiling Dr. Hudson quoted his hero, Thornwell Jacobs, on how delighted they are at the success of the play: "Nothing is too beautiful to happen."