By M. Abduh

The distinction of August Wilson’s work lies not in the epic, but in the everyday. As one producer put it, “[Wilson] was not drawn to writing about big, historical events. I don’t think he was ever gonna put Frederick Douglass on the stage.” Instead, he peopled his plays with garbagemen, trumpet players, and cab drivers. As Wilson deeply understood and appreciated the will and resolve of these uncelebrated men and women who somehow survived the terror of the cudgel, the noose, and the shotgun; who somehow migrated north, made homes, and raised families in the teeth of contract lenders and redliners. He felt no need to put Douglas on the stage because “I happen to think,” he said in an introductory note to Seven Guitars, “that the content of my mother’s life—her myths, her superstitions, her prayers, the contents of her pantry, the smell of her kitchen, the song that escaped from her sometimes parched lips, her thoughtful repose and pregnant laughter—are all worthy of art.” He elucidates this beautifully in his Honorary Doctorate acceptance speech at Howard University:

I am standing here in my grandfather’s shoes. They are large shoes. They are the shoes of a whole generation of men who left a life of unspeakable horror in the South and came north, searching for jobs and a way to live life with dignity and whatever eloquence the heart can call upon. They came from the cotton fields of Georgia and Arkansas and Mississippi, from the chain gangs of Alabama, from the cane fields of Louisiana, and in my grandfather’s case, from the tobacco fields of North Carolina. They came carrying Bibles and guitars. Marked men seeking a way of bludgeoning and shaping the malleable parts of themselves into a new identity as free men of definite and sincere worth. They brought with them manners and a way of life that corresponded to their temperament and sensibilities. And it is this field of manners and rituals of social intercourse, out of which I make my art.

So, while Shakespeare wrote of kings, Wilson wrote of kinfolk:

Bynum Cutler.
Savage, mule trainer, singer,
shaper of wood and iron.

“This is a poem I wrote for my grandfather,” he said of these lines. “Since I never knew my grandfather, I am speaking in a generational sense, a generational grandfather. This is your grandfather, my grandfather, all of us’s grandfather.” Thus, his plays and poetry sprung from his mother’s kitchen, from his grandfather’s shoes—as noble as anything written for or about any king.

“But why don’t you start with your grandmother and work your way back to Timbuktu, so you can understand who you are?

Wilson wanted audiences to know that these were not small lives. Through them, we are wedded to the glorious past. When his daughter went off to Morgan State University, she joined a student organization. “We’re studying about Timbuktu,” she called and told him. “That’s good,” he replied. “But why don’t you start with your grandmother and work your way back to Timbuktu, so you can understand who you are? And if you want to get your connection with Timbuktu, you got to go through your grandmother—and you’ll get to Timbuktu and the great empires of Africa…but you’ll also know better who you are having made that journey.” Thus, we not only come from a handful of kings and queens, but from millions of folk who crossed oceans, rebelled against enslavers, sang the blues, fried okra, pitched horseshoes, and spoke the poetry of the Mississippi Delta, the Hill District in Pittsburgh, and the Southside of Chicago. The poetry Wilson put in the mouths of everyday people like Levee, Rose Maxson, Berniece, and King Hedley II. All of whom are worthy of art.