Promo Code is active.

Setting the Scene

A Society on the Brink of Change

Playwright Pearl Cleage set Blues for an Alabama Sky at a specific time and place in history: the summer of 1930 in Harlem, New York, where “the creative euphoria of the Renaissance has given way to the harsher realities of the Great Depression.”

Setting the Scene

What was the Harlem Renaissance?

“The Harlem Renaissance was a period of rich cross-disciplinary artistic and cultural activity among African Americans between the end of World War I (1917) and the onset of the Great Depression and lead up to World War II (the 1930s). Artists associated with the movement asserted pride in Black life and identity, a rising consciousness of inequality and discrimination, and interest in the rapidly changing modern world—many experiencing a freedom of expression through the arts for the first time.” (National Gallery of Art)

The World of the Play

In the published script of Blues, Cleage sets the scene for the play with some happenings from this moment in time:

“Young Reverend Adam Clayton Powell is feeding the hungry and preaching an activist gospel at Abyssinian Baptist Church. Black Nationalist visionary Marcus Garvey has been discredited and deported. Birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger is opening a new family planning clinic on 126th Street and the doctors at Harlem Hospital are scrambling to care for a population whose most deadly disease is poverty. But, far from Harlem, African American expatriate extraordinaire, Josephine Baker, sips champagne in her dressing room at the Folies Bergère and laughs like a free woman.”

Pearl Cleage s9aqcl
Playwright Pearl Cleage. Photo by Albert Trotman.

People, Places, and Things in the Play

This "People, Places, and Things in the Play" feature was written by Faye M. Price and originally appeared in the play guide for the Guthrie Theater’s 2023 production of Blues for an Alabama Sky. It has been reprinted with permission.

People

BA STS Josephine Baker inifbn

Josephine Baker (1906–1975)
An American-born dancer, singer, actress, and activist. She emigrated to France in the 1920s and found great success with her jaw-dropping performances and skimpy costumes. During World War II, she assisted the French Resistance. In the 1960s, she was active in the American civil rights movement and refused to perform for segregated audiences. At the time of the play, Baker was one of Paris’ most popular and highly paid nightclub performers.

BA STS Marcus Garvey irvvrc

Marcus Garvey (1887–1940)
A Jamaican-born leader, political activist, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was the founder and first president of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. Ideologically, the organization was a Black Nationalist/pan-African movement that was committed to the diaspora migrating back to Africa. Garvey and his followers, called Garveyites, believed that birth control was a form of genocide for the Black race and were passionately opposed to Margaret Sanger’s birth control clinic in Harlem.

BA STS Langston Hughes dtyrwc

Langston Hughes (1901–1967)
A poet, novelist, and social activist who was considered the Poet Laureate of the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes moved to Harlem in 1921. At the time of the play, his debut novel, Not Without Laughter, had just been published and won a Harmon Gold Medal for Literature. It is believed that Hughes led the entirety of his life as a closeted gay man.

BA STS Richard Bruce Nugent h4tcqq

Richard Bruce Nugent (1906–1987)
An author, artist, actor, dancer, and popular personality during the Harlem Renaissance more commonly known as Bruce Nugent. Although there were many artists who were gay in Harlem at that time, Nugent was among only a few who were publicly out. His art explored Black identity and same-sex desire.

BA STS Adam Clayton Powell Jr vrzy3j

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (1908–1972)
The influential pastor of Harlem’s famed Abyssinian Baptist Church who became an influential figure during the Depression. Against his father’s wishes, he married chorus girl Isabel Washington. Powell began preaching at the church in 1930 and took over the church’s leadership after his father’s retirement in 1937. Powell was elected to Congress in 1945 and represented Harlem in that capacity until 1970.

BA STS John D Rockefeller nve22k

John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937)
A billionaire who continues to rank as one of the wealthiest men of modern times. He was the co-founder of Standard Oil and helped shape the oil industry and the practice of corporate philanthropy.

BA STS Margaret Sanger p0i3ji

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966)
An American birth control activist, writer, and nurse. She opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S. and is considered the founder of Planned Parenthood. Sanger believed that in order for women to have more equal footing in society and to lead healthier lives, they needed to be able to determine when to bear children. With support from the Amsterdam News, Abyssinian Baptist Church, Urban League, W.E.B. Du Bois, and others, she opened the Harlem family planning clinic in 1930, which remained open until 1937. In more recent years, Sanger’s belief in eugenics based on class has been denounced.

BA STS Fats Waller jikc9u

Fats Waller (1904–1943)
An American stride pianist, organist, vocalist, and composer known for songs such as “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “Honeysuckle Rose,” and “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby.” In the 1930s, Waller ranked at the top among African American entertainers.

BA STS Booker T Washington k7zajp

Booker T. Washington (1856–1915)
An American educator, author, and orator. He was the leader of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (later known as the Tuskegee Institute) for more than 30 years and one of the most influential Black leaders of his time. His philosophy was one of self-help, racial solidarity, moderation, and accommodation as strategies for social and economic injustice. Washington’s viewpoint was diametrically opposed to those of scholar W.E.B. Du Bois, who advocated for political action and a civil rights agenda.

Places

BA STS The Cotton Club ocxz07

The Cotton Club
Harlem’s largest and nationally recognized nightclub where everyone who was anyone—movie stars, gangsters, Broadway performers—wanted to spend an evening. Featuring bootleg liquor and musical revues, the club launched the careers of many Black entertainers of the era, including Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, and the Nicholas Brothers, among others. The Cotton Club was initially a whites-only establishment with the rare exception for Black celebrities like Ethel Waters and Bill Robinson. The original club closed in 1940.
Pictured above: Cab Calloway and his band and dancers performing at the Cotton Club.

 

BA STS Folies Bergere yf21qs

Folies Bergère
A popular nightclub in Paris that opened in 1869 as a music hall. It reached the height of its fame from the 1890s until World War II. Productions included a series of sumptuous and grandiose musicals featuring beautiful young women scantily clad in gaudy costumes against exotic backdrops. It is still open for business.

Hamilton Lodge
An event space located at 280 West 155th Street, also known as the Rockland Palace, that was founded by the Grand Order of Odd Fellows, Lodge 710. It was initially a space for affluent African Americans, providing a home for political events, pageants, and lectures. In 1869, Harlem’s annual drag balls began in that space, flourishing by the time of the play. Later in the 1920s, the Masquerade and Civic Ball became the most popular gay event in town. As popularity grew, the balls attracted more than just queer patrons. In 1937, the ball hosted nearly 8,000 guests.

BA STS Harlem 1925 ofutm9

Harlem
A district of New York City located in the northern part of Manhattan. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Harlem Renaissance centered the area with the vibrancy of African American life and culture. There was a proliferation of poetry, dance, theater, music, and visual arts during this period, and the night life was in full swing.

Harlem Hospital
A modest, three-story health care facility that opened in 1887 and originally served as a holding place for patients to be moved to Bellevue Hospital. The hospital relocated to a larger space in 1907 to help accommodate more citizens in the neighborhood and always offered a sense of pride to Harlem’s Black community. In 1919, the first Black physician was hired by the hospital. At the beginning of 1929, only seven of the 64 physicians and surgeons on the in-service staff at Harlem Hospital were African American.

BA STS Lafayette Theatre oql4w1

Lafayette Theatre
A live theater venue located at 132nd Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem that operated from 1912 to 1951. In 1913, it became the first major theater to desegregate, allowing African American theatergoers to sit in orchestra seats instead of the balcony. The theater served as the home for the Lafayette Players, an all-Black acting troupe, from 1915 to 1932.

Savoy Ballroom
An important center for jazz music and dance in Harlem. On any given night during its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s, you could find up to 5,000 people doing the Lindy Hop, Flying Charleston, Shorty George, or any number of fashionable swing dances. The Savoy had two bandstands so there would always be two bands at the ready, guaranteeing the music played nonstop. It was one of the first ballrooms in the U.S. to integrate Black and white patrons. The ballroom eventually closed and was demolished in 1959.

Sugar Hill
An area in Harlem that became a popular place for wealthy and prominent African Americans to live during the Harlem Renaissance. The nickname reflected the “sweet life” of its residents.

Tuskegee
A small city in Macon County, Alabama, and an iconic location for African American history. It is home to the famed Tuskegee Institute, which hosted both the work of George Washington Carver and the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments. It is also known for the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American airmen in the U.S. military.

Things

Amsterdam News
A weekly, Black-owned newspaper serving New York City that was founded in 1909. In the 1930s, the paper became a prominent voice for Black Americans.

Demimonde
A group of people considered to be on the fringe of respectable society.

The Great Depression
A period of worldwide economic downturn between 1929 and 1939. Cities around the world were hit hard with devastating consequences, and people greatly suffered from both emotional and financial trauma. By December 1930, the Bank of United States (a private bank in New York City) collapsed. At the time, it was the fourth largest bank in the country. This moment was widely considered to be the event that started the Great Depression.

Literati
People interested in literature or the arts.

Prohibition
An era in the U.S. that began in 1920 and lasted until 1933. During this era, the 18th Amendment enforced legal prevention of selling, manufacturing, and transporting alcoholic beverages. Both federal and national authorities had difficulty enforcing Prohibition, giving rise to “bathtub gin” (amateur homemade spirits), bootleggers (someone who makes or sells illegal spirits), and gangsters.

Sunday Promenade
A moment when men and women dressed in their finest attire would stroll down Harlem’s Seventh Avenue after church, feeling and looking good.

 

See Seattle Rep's production of Pearl Cleage's Blues for an Alabama Sky, on stage January 30–February 23, 2025.

About the Play