August Wilson Quotes
The most valuable blacks are those in prison, those who have the warrior spirit, who had a sense of being African. They got for their women and children what they needed when all other avenues were closed to them.
Savran, David. In Their Own Words: Contemporary American Playwrights. Theatre Communications Group, 1988, p. 296.
Historically, until recently there has been a migration from the South to other parts of the country. After legal segregation ended, the out migration slowed and by the end of the 20th century, people—including intellectuals began moving to the South. Generally, the vestiges of the anti intellectualism began to fade, but even into the 21st century the College Board Test Scores and other educational measures were generally lower in the South than in the rest of the country. Ironically, whereas the Southern insistence on segregated schools was to prevent the intellectual erosion that racists thought would come with integration, the educational achievement of the schools and population of the less segregated school areas was considerably better. With legal segregation, there were very few high quality universities in the South and no “World Class” schools. However, along with desegregation has been the intellectual and academic improvement of the Southern Schools and the South began to have, for the first time in America, some educational institutions that were on a par with the rest of the country. The South paid a heavy price for segregation and insularity.
The sheriff was responsible for the Cook County Jail. At the time of the interview, Dart had 2500 mentally ill people in his job, making the Cook County Jail the largest insane asylum in the country. The worst part about that situation was that the jail is in no position to provide proper diagnosis and treatment for the mentally ill.
Under the previous Republican administrations, virulent and overt racists were not generally appointed especially as they were generally then Democrats. However, when Woodrow Wilson was elected president, he not only appointed many overt racists but he himself may have been one of the most racist Presidents every to inhabit the white House. He fired almost all the Blacks who held positions in the Federal government.
August Wilson (April 27, 1945 – October 2, 2005) was an American playwright. He has been referred to as the "theater's poet of Black America". He is best known for a series of ten plays collectively called The Pittsburgh Cycle, which chronicle the experiences and heritage of the African-American community in the 20th century. Plays in the series include, Jitney (1982), Fences (1984), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984), Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1986), The Piano Lesson (1987), King Hedley II (1999). Two of his plays received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and two of his other works won the Tony Award for Best Play. In 2006 Wilson was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
