EPISODE 3

 
 

Alice Childress

Episode 3: the political life of alice childress

Dominique speaks with Professor Mary Helen Washington, author of The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s, and numerous other works.  

Hosted by: Dominique Rider

Guest: Mary Helen Washington

Produced by: CLASSIX

Associate Producer: Marchánt Davis

Conceived and Written by: CLASSIX (Brittany Bradford, A.J. Muhammad, Dominique Rider, Arminda Thomas, Awoye Timpo)

Sound Design and Editing: Aubrey Dube

Theme Song: Alphonso Horne

References, Resources and Images

Please see below for a few items mentioned in this episode’s conversation.

For an in-depth biography of Alice Childress and full information about her plays please visit the Childress page in the CLASSIX Catalog.

Books, Articles and Essays

The Other Blacklist by Mary Helen Washington (Link)

“For a Strong Negro People’s Theater” by Alice Childress (Link)

Alice Childress debut article for Freedom Magazine (Link)

Freedom Magazine archives (Link)

Harlem Writers Guild (Link)

Alice Childress FBI file (Link)

+ TRANSCRIPT

Transcript forthcoming

GUEST BIOS:

Mary Helen Washington

Mary Helen Washington is Distinguished University Professor in the English Department at the University of Maryland, College Park, specializing in 20th and 21st century African American literature.  Her monograph, The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s (Columbia University Press, 2014) received Honorable Mention in the William Sanders Scarborough Prize competition from The Modern Language Association. She has edited three collections of African American literature: Memory of Kin: Stories About Family by Black Writers(Random House, February 1991; Black-Eyed Susans and Midnight Birds: Stories By and About Black Women, reprinted Doubleday/Anchor, January 1990; and Invented Lives: Narratives of Black Women, 1860-1960, Doubleday/Anchor, September 1987.  From 1976-1980, she was the Director of Black Studies at the University of Detroit.  From 1980 to 1990, she taught at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.  She was president of The American Studies Association from 1996-1997 and was awarded the American Studies Association’s Carl Bode-Norman Holmes Pearson Prize for lifetime achievement in 2015.  Her current project is Afterlives: Legacies of the Black Literary Left.