All God's Chillun Got Wings

All God's Chillun Got Wings (1924), a play in two acts by Eugene O'Neill. [Provincetown Playhouse, 43 perf.] Although the black Jim Harris (Paul Robeson) and the white Ella Downey (Mary Blair) have known each other since childhood, Ella drifts away from their relationship as her awareness of racial prejudice grows, but Jim still loves her passionately. Ella takes up with a local ruffian and has a child by him, only to have him desert her and the child die. In desperation she marries Jim. But her racial prejudices continue to bedevil her, finally driving her over the brink of sanity. Dealing with her problems causes Jim to fail his bar exams, but he remains loving and devoted. In her dementia Ella becomes like a child, yet she retains enough basic sense to recognize she has hurt Jim. She begs forgiveness and asks him to play marbles with her. “I'll play right up to the gates of Heaven with you!” Jim responds. Critics were sharply divided on the play's merits. Heywood Broun dismissed it in the World as “a very tiresome play,” while in the Telegram‐Mail Robert Welsh predicted that it was “likely to take a permanent place in the American theatre.” Many found this serious, understanding treatment of miscegenation offensive. No one was surprised when the Ku Klux Klan issued threats to O'Neill, who replied that he had written not a “race problem play” but “a study of two principal characters, and their tragic struggle for happiness.” However, attempts at repression came from less‐expected sources. Disturbed by rumors that a black man kisses a white girl onstage, the New York City license commissioner threatened to shut down the theatre if the play was produced; and just before the first performance began, police served an injunction forbidding the use of child actors in the play. The players got around these problems by reading from the manuscript and cutting the children's minor roles. Furious at this evasion, District Attorney Joab H. Banton promised to bring charges of obscenity and he did—against a later O'Neill play, Desire Under the Elms.