History Redux 2013: Umbra and FST
Two symposia, “Talkin’ Revolution,” (New Orleans, October
17-20) and “ Celebrating the Umbra Workshop,” (New York, November 1) will cast
light on the matter of history redux
, the ways people remember and reconfigure specific moments of cultural development.
The wording of David Henderson’s announcement about the
Umbra symposium is instructive:
Join us for a half century
celebration of the Umbra Workshop! Founded on New York’s Lower East Side in
1961 and dispersed in 1964, Umbra’s influence on American literature continues
to this day. The Umbra Workshop was comprised of an aesthetically diverse group
of young artists, many with “a strong commitment to ‘nonliterary’ black
culture.” The Workshop was nurtured by people as disparate as Langston Hughes
and Andy Young, actively engaged in the Civil Rights Movement, in questions of
diversity in letters, and, later, in the Black Arts Movement. The first in a
series of gatherings, this event brings together several of the founding
members, including poets, novelists, and activists Steve Cannon, David Henderson, Rashidah Ismaili, Joe Johnson and Ishmael Reed for
readings and conversation and focusing on some of the complex aesthetic,
political, social, and literary relationships that informed this legendary
Workshop.
It whets our appetite to know what
impact the post-dispersal activities of the participants –those named in the
announcement and those to be remembered in the discussions had and may continue
to have on the growth of African American literature. Tom Dent, Calvin Hicks, Raymond Patterson,
Askia Muhammad Touré, Lorenzo Thomas, Calvin Hernton, and Norman Pritchard and
others are among those to be remembered.
In contrast, “Talkin’ Revolution” will
make inquiries about the Free Southern Theater (FST) from 1963 to 1985 and
about what FST may teach us about the present state and the future of African
American theatre and writing. Why was
FST founded by John O’Neal, Doris Derby, and Gilbert Moses at Tougaloo College? How did its early productions in Mississippi
shape discussions regarding culture and civil rights struggles? Why did FST move its homebase from
Mississippi to New Orleans? Although dispersal
is an important feature of FST history, it is more necessary to account for the
impact the institution had on the growth, rise, and decline of community theater in New Orleans and other parts of the
South. And we have to think about Tom Dent as a key figure in both Umbra
Workshop and FST.
History redux is invaluable for
assessing our contemporary use and abuse of culture(s).
Jerry W. Ward, Jr.
October 13, 2013 PHBW
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