The former is also one of the “earliest Harlem Renaissance plays to be set in Africa” and treats the miscegenation theme in a unique way, pairing an African male with the daughter of a white missionary (29). Paupaulekejo imparts an ironic view of Christianity and its inability to negotiate “racial and sexual boundaries” (31), while Starting Point illuminates the struggles of an urban black family. Although Johnson wrote several dramas in the category of “Plays of Average Negro Life,” only two scripts remain, Starting Point and Paupaulekejo, featured in part 3. However, both texts were published in Negro History in Thirteen Plays (1935) and may have been staged by local Washington, D.C., schools (22). Johnson submitted Frederick Douglas and William Ellen Craft to the Federal Theatre Project between 19 but received ambivalent reader reviews, and neither play was produced. In part 2, “Historical Plays,” Johnson illustrates antebellum responses to slavery with plays that serve as “model history lessons taught in an engaging and memorable way” (23). BOOK REV IEWS gues that these plays “shift the focus away from black people as ‘primitive,’ toward a consideration of the uncivilized (primitive) institution of slavery, its far-reaching effects, and of how post-emancipation African Americans must deal daily with its consequences” (22). In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
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