Synopsis and Characters

Act I, Scene I: Afternoon, August 1922 

• Ella and Juanita discuss Victor’s interest in the Garvey movement, which Juanita thinks is ridiculous. Ella defends Vic against her mother Martha’s harsh criticism.
• Lester receives a promising letter about a scholarship at the Copeland Technical Institute. Disillusioned by how education hasn’t led to financial stability for her family, Wanda announces that she is quitting school and entering the workforce.
• Vic dreams of moving to Africa. 

Act I, Scene II: One Week Later 

• Percy and Les discuss school, and Claudine flirts with Percy.
• Dan and Vic argue about their heritage: Vic believes his heritage is in Africa, and Dan believes it is in America. Dan asks Vic to go in on a kitchenette with him so they can both be landlords. Vic refuses, saying that he is backing the Garvey movement and plans to move to Africa. 
• News arrives that Marcus Garvey’s steamship, Republic, was deemed unseaworthy by the maritime inspector and that Garvey fled to Canada.
• Les then learns that he was denied a scholarship because he is Black. Vic purchases 1500 shares in Garvey’s shipping and passenger line, the Black Star Line. 

Act II, Scene II: One Year Later, August 1923

• The Garveyites are planning a labor strike (of painters, bricklayers, plasterers, and other tradespeople), and Vic must break the news to Les that they cannot afford for Les to attend the Negro World Conference, a Garveyite conference, in Harlem.
• Dan and Juanita arrive at the Mason house in a flashy new car. Dan says that using the white man’s method of individual achievement is the way to rise up. Vic says Dan is leeching off of his own people. They have a heated argument. 

Act II, Scene II: January 1924

• Caroline and Phillip are sick, and the family needs money. Vic asks Les to quit school and divert his wages to support the family.
• Wanda has purchased an extremely expensive sealskin coat. Lester’s classmate Nathan Piszer visits. Piszer, who is a socialist, says that all oppressed people can come together to defeat the ruling class. 
• Garveyites Count Strawder, Count Cotton, and Sister Gabrella honor Vic with the title of Lord of Agriculture of the Provisional Republic of Africa because of a paper he wrote on the future of co-operative farming in Africa that he had presented at the Negro World Conference in Harlem.
• Dan confronts Vic about asking Les to quit school, saying that Dan doesn’t pay Les wages so he can support his family. Dan offers Vic money on the condition that he will give Dan his Black Star Line stocks. Dan wants to sell them off. Ella begs Vic to give the stocks to Dan, but Vic refuses.

Act II, Scene III: Early Evening, February 1924

• Wanda’s sealskin coat was repossessed by the sheriff.
• Marcus Garvey’s appeal to overturn his mail fraud conviction was denied by the Supreme Court. 
• Martha and Ella fight. Martha lays into Vic, displaying significant bias based on colorism, and she decides to move into Juanita and Dan’s house. Vic says that Martha is ashamed of her Blackness because she was born out of wedlock.
• Ella turns on Vic and says she despises him and would leave him if she had the means to. Vic realizes he cannot escape prejudice at home, and thus, he probably will not escape it in Africa either.

Act III, Scene I: Late Afternoon, Late August 1932 

• The Mason family is being evicted. Ella tries to sell furniture to a used furniture salesman, Marks.
• Claudine says that Wanda should accept money from Hogan, an old white man, in exchange for “being sweet” to him, in order to keep her family in their home. 
• Dan and Les argue about communism and Dan’s antisemitic ideas. Les calls Wanda a whore after having witnessed her exit Hogan’s car the night before. Les is going to Springfield to ask the governor for economic and housing relief. Dan is dismissive.
• Vic arrives from court with the bad news: the family has 20 days to vacate the home. Martha returns from Juanita’s, furious about her living conditions and suggesting that Juanita is running a filthy boardinghouse. 

Act III, Scene II: Around 3:00am, August 31, 1932 

• Wanda is apparently missing. Her friend Claudine is sneaking around outside. She is surprised that Wanda is not home. 

Act III, Scene III: Several Hours Later 

• Bailiffs arrive to put the Masons out of their home. Ella has $50 from Wanda, which she believes to be a loan from Wanda’s boss.
• Wanda and Les arrive home with a story about a car accident that Wanda was in the previous night.
• Les wants the family to simply refuse to leave their home on principle, even though they now have the $50 they need to stay, thanks to Wanda’s money. 
• Phillip, unaware that Wanda has come home, runs in shouting that she is in jail after being caught in a raid with Hogan, presumably arrested for sex work. Wanda assumes that Les has told on her and slaps him. Vic calls Wanda a tramp, but Ella blames Vic for Wanda’s behavior. 
• As a group of communists comes to support the Masons in their fight to stay in their home, a conflict with the police ensues. Vic is shot and killed.