Greg MD Blog

Two Trains Running by August Wilson

Research the Black Power movement and what was happening in 1969. How does the play comment on the movement? The play comment on Civil Rights Movement that started in 1965 when Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were assassinated, causing protest across the U.S. in solidarity against discrimination toward the black communities. However, this sparked a riot in support of Black Power by taking a stand against racial discrimination. Also, the Black Panthers party grew alarmingly during the late 60s, including Black Nationalism. In 1969 the Black community started petitioning white businesses and spending their money within their community as support. The play discusses the Civil Rights movement against discrimination by police brutality against black men through racial profiling. The white folks thought black culture was lazy and did not want to work, so businesses were moving out of their community. Many businesses are moving out of the black community because of robbery or theft. Property or businesses for sale in the black community are paid less than in white neighborhoods, and there’s a big difference.

 What do you think the play asks its original audiences (in 1990) to do? I think the play asks its original audience to look at our current environment of how the police are chasing down young black men by shooting to kill or physical assault, including false imprisonment or arrest of crimes they did not commit. The black community is tired of being disenfranchised, where these young black men wind up going to penitentiary for crimes they did not commit, so in the 90s, there was a civil rights movement looking at the false incarceration of black men. The play depicted the injustice of oppression by limiting their civil rights in the black community. I believe this play in the 90s brought to the forefront what the black community, especially the young men, go through every day. On the other hand, this makes us (meaning white people) more aware of calling out the injustice when it is needed.

What elements and issues in the play do you think would still be relevant to a contemporary audience? If I was producing this play for Two Trains Running, I keep a few elements because these different situations are relevant to our current environment. Today we are still experiencing justice, especially in the black community. Over the last eight years, we have seen the country as a whole treatment of the black community is experiencing today. I have heard from friends that discrimination in the black community has been going on for years. Now we see this because cameras on the technology phone have caught up, exposing the brutality by law enforcement. I cannot say I know how they feel because of discrimination or disenfranchisement based on their skin tone. We have seen in the last presidential administration how police brutality has increased substantially, and this has caused conflict and tensions within our cities across our country. The injustice among our communities causes the riots that have happening today, and we are feeling the ripple effects, not just in the black community but other non-whites, including gay and trans people. Today all these groups feel marginalized by a select group of white people, including White Nationalists and many other groups supporting subjugation.

What do you think might not land or make sense? To be straightforward, changing the script would take away the ideal of the writer, which is the racism that black people experience in our country. I think changing it will cause a shift in the direction of the director or the writer of the play. On the other hand, changing the scene or setting to modernize matches our environment today. The present time and setting of the play would relate to the year 2016 of the last presidential administration rhetoric caused more division by dividing our country even more. On page 2, Wolf and Memphis talk about civil lawyers, and Wolf mentions there are different kinds of lawyers with NAACP, yet nothing more is discussed about the lawyers. I think writing that part out because it did not seem to be a piece of important information that is needed, or if it were, I would have elaborated more on the lawyers or the NAACP.

Two Trains Running was produced contemporaneously with a resurgence of interest in black power, marked perhaps most notably by Spike Lee’s 1992 film Malcolm X. Watching Lee’s film and researching other treatments of the black power movement during the 1990s. In no less than one page, write an essay analyzing why and how the movement was portrayed during the decade (the 90s). How and why did such treatments tend to differ from historical reality? Why might they have been popular? How has Wilson’s life influenced his understanding and presentation of the Black experience and black power movement? How does the notion of the Black Power Movement manifest itself in today’s society?

How did such treatments tend to differ from historical reality? During the 90s, there was much controversy over the assault on black communities in the United States. Some activists and celebrities talked about these movements among the black community; however, that did not shape or reform racial discrimination in our country. The action movement depicts black men incarcerated in this system who did not commit crimes. We watched the 1992 riots in LA of the beating of Rodney King. He was just one of many who were abused or assaulted, even killed by law enforcement, knowing many more black men have experienced this.

The movie of Malcolm X, 1992, with Denzel Washington, talked about real issues in our country previously that had led us to the 90s of the movement of many riots. In the movie, he talks about how black men are charged for sleeping with white women only based on their skin tone. Because of their sexual relations with a white woman, they were concurrently sentenced for a crime on 14 counts, 8 to 10 years.

So all of these events caused the movement in the 90s for police and prison reform. However, things were even more problematic for imprisoned individuals to file a lawsuit in federal court. Sadly, our prison population grew 47% during the 90s.

Why did such treatment tend to differ from historical reality?The treatment that differs from historical facts is almost as if you hear about these issues, but ignoring the problems is much easier. The black community in our country has been attacked many times, as we have often heard, but People were afraid to voice against this assault. Our elected public officials know these issues are ongoing, but the problem seems to manifest in addressing the problems. As the movie depicts, “Democracy is hypocrisy” that the attack on black communities does not have the same rights or equality as their counterpart of white people. An example, let’s say a black man had a small amount of marijuana on himself personally back in the 90s; after three times being caught, they went to prison for a minimum of 10 years.

These young kids raised during the 90s and many years before saw how officers or law enforcement abused power. The abuse did not stop there; even in children’s services was removing children from their homes for no reason and putting them into foster homes.

Why did such treatment differ? Our leaders did not want to say it was a problem. Or why is this continuing to happen? There was no evidence for falsifying documents to get a conviction for a crime, especially against black men, by racial profiling. During the 90s, police officers did not have body cams, and people did not have cell phones with cameras, so there was no way to record these issues in real time. Because of this, we heard about the problems, but we did not see their problems. Unfortunately, our legal system took law enforcement’s statement correct in their written report of the account for the arrest.

The difference between the 90s and the 60s was the reality that many Black national grassroots groups formed to help the movement for the Black communities. These groups fighting for the civil rights movement, such as the Black Panthers, NAACP, and the Nation of Islam, to name a few. These groups were fighting against the KKK, burning down individual homes in the black community and tormenting these communities.

Why might they have been popular?The black community might have been thriving if the laws did not directly affect the community. In the 90s, their community was weaponized by the Polarization of the laws against the black community. However, this has created more tension and division since 2016 by a few leaders feeling threatened and using democracy against specific communities. If non-color can break the notion or ideal, that negatively affects black communities to where they are accepted and have equal rights and protection under the law. They might have been popular!

How has Wilson’s life influenced his understanding presentation of the black experience and the black power movement? Wilson was a storyteller who knew how to tell the story, able to cross barriers between people by showing the disenfranchisement or the abuse against the black community. Watching the documentary and reading about Wilson’s life, the visionary storytelling was with the perfection that created an effortless story coming across to the audience that helped bridge some of the differences between races.

August Wilson’s born mother is African American; his father is of white German descent, and he identifies as more African American. He was influenced by many other poets and including the Blues. His understanding of his own black experience, and he could understand the black power of the movement for civil rights throughout the 60s. He was part of the post-black art movement that reflected his experience in his work. Throughout his career, his scripts are the truth of the Black Power movement that regards the Black American life as he depicts it. Wilson’s revolutionary is about remembering who we are as black people living here in America. The country has seen racial conflict for many decades through his work, an exhibit of black art shows, and talks about the black power movement for civil rights.

How does the notion of the black power movement manifest itself today? The black power movement started in the 60s and continued into the 70s for equality, racial pride, and the empowerment of the black community. These issues still exhibit in society as we keep going back to these same issues. In the last eight years, the country has watched the killing of young black men on national television, including law enforcement making mistakes with no-knock search warrants to kill black individuals in their homes. The Black Power movement brought together the black community and others to help increase awareness by changing our culture today. The black community movement is paving the way for other people of color or the gay community, and the trans community for equal rights and opportunity in our society today.

Written by Greg MD