THE PURPLE FLOWER (3)
By:
December 19, 2025
In Margaret B. Wilkerson’s Foreword to the anthology Black Theatre USA: Plays by African Americans, 1847 to Today, we read that Marita Bonner’s 1928 play The Purple Flower is “an allegory that portrays the final revolution when Blacks forcibly claim equality by overthrowing their oppressors.” We are pleased to serialize this story for HILOBROW’s readers.
ALL INSTALLMENTS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5.
(A YOUNG MAN pushes through the crowd. As soon as he reaches the center front, he throws a bundle of books.)
YOUNG MAN — I’m through! I do not need these things! They’re no good!
OLD MAN — (pushes up from the back and stands beside him) You’re through! Ain’t you been reading in the books how to get Somewhere? Why don’t you tell us how to get there?
YOUNG MAN — I’m through, I tell you! There isn’t anything in one of these books that tells Black Us how to get around White Devils.
OLD MAN — (softly—sadly) I thought the books would tell us how!
YOUNG MAN — No! The White Devils wrote the books themselves. You know they aren’t going to put anything like that in there!
YET ANOTHER OLD MAN — (throwing back his head and calling into the air) Lord! Why don’t you come by here and tell us how to get Somewhere?
A YOUNG MAN — (who had been idly chewing grass) Aw, you ought to know by now that isn’t the way to talk to God!
OLD MAN — It ain’t! It ain’t! It ain’t! It ain’t! Ain’t I been talking to God just like that for seventy years? Three score and ten years—Amen!
THE GRASS CHEWER — Yes! Three score and ten years you been telling God to tell you what to do. Telling Him! And three score and ten years you been wearing your spine double sitting on the rocks in the valley too.
OLD US — He is all powerful! He will move in his own time!
YOUNG US — Well, if he is all powerful, God does not need you to tell Him what to do.
OLD US — Well, what’s the need of me talkin’ to Him then?
YOUNG US — Don’t talk so much to Him! Give Him a chance! He might want to talk to you but you do so much yelling in His ears that He can’t tell you anything.
(There is a commotion in the back stage. SWEET comes running to CORNERSTONE crying.)
SWEET — Oh—oo—!
CORNERSTONE — What is it, Sweet?
SWEET — There’s a White Devil sitting in the bushes in the dark over there! There’s a White Devil sitting in the bushes over in the dark! And when I walked by—he pinched me!
FINEST BLOOD — (catching a rock) Where is he, sister? (he starts toward the bushes)
CORNERSTONE — (screaming) Don’t go after him son! They will kill you if you hurt him!
FINEST BLOOD — I don’t care if they do. Let them. I’d be out of this hole then!
AVERAGE — Listen to that young fool! Better stay safe and sound where he is! At least he got somewhere to eat and somewhere to lay his head.
FINEST BLOOD — Yes I can lay my head on the rocks of Nowhere.
(Up the center of the stage toils a new figure of a square set middle-aged us. He walks heavily, for in each hand he carries a heavy bag. As soon as he reaches the center front he throws the bags down groaning as he does so.)
AN OLD MAN — ’Smatter with you! Ain’t them bags full of gold?
THE NEW COMER — Yes, they are full of gold!
OLD MAN — Well why ain’t you smiling then? Them White Devils can’t have anything no better!
THE NEW COMER — Yes they have! They have Somewhere! I tried to do what they said. I brought them money, but when I brought it to them they would not sell me even a spoonful of dirt from Somewhere! I’m through!
CORNERSTONE — Don’t be through. The gold counts for something. It must!
(An OLD WOMAN cries aloud in a quavering voice from the back.)
OLD LADY — Last night I had a dream.
A YOUNG US — Dreams? Excuse me! I know I’m going now! Dreams!!
OLD LADY — I dreamed that I saw a White Devil cut in six pieces—head there, (pointing) body here—one leg here—one there—an arm here—an arm there.
AN OLD MAN — Thank God! It’s time then!
AVERAGE — Time for what? Time to eat? Sure ain’t time to get Somewhere!
OLD MAN — (walking forward) It’s time! It’s time! Bring me an iron pot!
YOUNG US — Aw don’t try any conjuring!
OLD MAN — (louder) Bring me a pot of iron. Get the pot from the fire in the valley.
CORNERSTONE — Give him the pot!
(Someone brings it up immediately)
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.
SERIALIZED BY HILOBOOKS: James Parker’s Cocky the Fox | Annalee Newitz’s “The Great Oxygen Race” | Matthew Battles’s “Imago” | & many more original and reissued novels and stories.