Wine in the Wilderness (Historical Context)

Historical Context

The Civil Rights Era

Wine in the Wilderness was written and takes place during the period of American history known as the Civil Rights era. During this period, spanning roughly from the mid-1950s through the mid-1970s, a number of African-American political leaders rose to prominence, working in various ways to create greater opportunities for African Americans. The characters in Childress’s play discuss several of these leaders, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and the politician Adam Clayton Powell.

Martin Luther King, Jr. became the leader of the Civil Rights Movement and was active in organizing nonviolent protests and speaking out against segregation in the South. Inspired by the non-violent methods put forth by Indian nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi, King worked through an organization known as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to stage such events as the famous March on Washington, in 1963. King’s leadership was effective in seeing through important civil rights legislation, such as the comprehensive 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1964. King was assassinated in 1968.

Malcolm X was a leader in the movement for black nationalism during the early 1960s. Born Malcolm Little, he converted to the Nation of Islam faith of Black Muslims and changed his name to Malcolm X. Malcolm X became known as a powerful speaker and effective leader in the Nation of Islam movement and was eventually assigned to be the minister at a mosque in Harlem. Malcolm X was critical of the Civil Rights Movement of Martin Luther King, Jr., advocating black separatism instead of integration and self-defense through violence rather than nonviolent protest. He was assassinated in 1965 during a rally in Harlem. His life and political views are captured in the much celebrated book, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), written by Alex Haley, and Malcolm X.

A lesser known African-American political activist mentioned in Childress’s play is Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., a pastor based in Harlem who worked as an elected public official from the 1940s through the 1960s. In 1941, Powell was the first African American to be elected to the New York City Council. In 1945, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, to which he was reelected for eleven terms. Powell was active in working for the passage of some fifty separate liberal legislative acts and bills to support civil rights, end segregation, and promote education and fair labor practices. His political career stumbled in 1967, due to controversy over a private legal battle, and he retired from politics in 1971. He died a year later.

African-American Literature and the Arts

In Wine in the Wilderness, Childress makes reference to a number of prominent African-American writers from the late nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth century. One of the earliest writers mentioned in the play is the African-American author Paul Laurence Dunbar, who published successful collections of poetry and short stories, as well novels, during the 1890s.

Twentieth century African-American literature and the arts have been characterized by two important literary and aesthetic movements: The Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement. The Harlem Renaissance, also referred to as the New Negro Movement, designates a period during the 1920s in which African-American literature flourished among a group of writers concentrated in Harlem, New York. Childress mentions the prominent Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, known for the collection The Weary Blues (1926), among many other works. The period of incredible literary output known as the Harlem Renaissance diminished when the Depression of the 1930s affected the financial status of many African-American writers.

In Wine in the Wilderness, Bill mentions the author Margaret Walker, whose career spans both the Harlem Renaissance and the era of the Black Arts Movement. Walker was educated during the 1930s and became acquainted with writers of the Harlem Renaissance such as the novelist Richard Wright. She published a celebrated volume of poetry, For My People, in 1942. Her first novel, Jubilee (1966), was published during the era of the Black Arts Movement. Jubilee, based on the life of Walker’s great-grandmother, has been contrasted with the novel Gone With the Wind (1936, by Margaret Mitchell) as a tale of nineteenth century

Southern life, from the perspective of several generations of an African-American family which endured slavery.

During the 1960s and 1970s, The Black Arts Movement, also referred to as the Black Aesthetic Movement, emerged, embodying values derived from black nationalism and promoting politically and socially significant works, often written in Black English vernacular. Important writers of the Black Arts Movement include Imamu Amiri Baraka (also known as LeRoi Jones), who is referred to in Childress’s play familiarly as “LeRoi.” Other important writers of the Black Arts Movement include Eldridge Cleaver, Angela Davis, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison.

Compare & Contrast

• 1960s: In 1965, a major race riot takes place over a period of six days in the Watts district of Los Angeles, California, leaving 34 dead and some 1000 injured. Over the next three years, race riots break out in most of the major cities of the United States. Some of the worst riots are in Newark, New Jersey, and Detroit, Michigan, in the summer of 1967. The last of this wave of riots occurs in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.
  Today: A race riot takes place in south-central Los Angeles in 1992, resulting in 52 deaths. The rioting is sparked by a court ruling in favor of the white policemen accused of brutally beating African-American motorist Rodney King.
• 1960s: The Black Arts Movement represents the cutting edge of African-American theater. The Dutchman (1964), by Amiri Baraka (also known as LeRoi Jones), is an early prominent theatrical production of the Black Arts Movement. Inspired by, and in part an initiator of, the Black Arts Movement, Baraka establishes the Black Repertory Theater in Harlem.
  Today: Numerous black theaters have been established throughout the United States, with many mainstream stages also featuring black theatrical productions. A new generation of African-American writers and artists are greatly influenced by the legacy of the Black Arts Movement. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1985), by August Wilson, is the most celebrated play of the 1980s by an African-American writer.
• 1960s: Prominent African-American political leaders include Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Adam Clayton Powell, as well as Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, who founds the revolutionary Black Panther Party in 1966.

  Today: Jesse Jackson, a Baptist minister, is one of the most prominent African-American civil rights leaders of the 1980s. Jackson’s voter-registration drive during the 1980s helps lead to the election of Chicago’s first African-American mayor, Harold Washington, in 1983. Louis Farrakhan, the African-American leader of his own sect of the Nation of Islam (also known as the Black Muslims) founded in 1978, also rises to prominence as an influential black leader in the 1980s and 1990s. Oprah Winfrey, although known primarily as a popular daytime TV talk show host and media personality, is arguably the most influential African-American woman in the United States. She is awarded the Woman of Achievement Award from the National Organization for Women in 1986, and the Image Award from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People four years in a row (1989 – 1992).