Blues for Mister Charlie by James Baldwin

First published: 1964

First produced: 1964, at the ANTA-Washington Square Theatre, New York City

Type of plot: Social realism

Time of work: The 1960’s

Locale: The American South

Principal Characters:

• Meridian Henry, a black minister
• Richard, his son
• Juanita, a black college student
• Lyle Britten, a white store owner
• Jo, Lyle’s wife
• Parnell James, the white editor of a local newspaper

The Play

Act 1 of Blues for Mister Charlie begins in darkness. The audience hears the sound of a gunshot. The lights are brought up slowly to reveal Lyle picking up Richard’s body and dropping it upstage out of sight of the audience. Lyle exclaims, “And may every nigger like this nigger end like this nigger—face down in the weeds.” In the next scene, at Meridian’s church, the minister coaches college students who will serve as protesters for black civil rights and for justice in the prosecution of Richard’s murderer. One student doubts whether the suspected murderer, Lyle, will be arrested. Lyle had previously killed the husband of Willa Mae, the black woman with whom he was having an affair. The police had ruled the killing was done in self-defense even though it seemed unlikely that Lyle would have had to kill the black man, who, at the age of sixty, was no match for the much younger store owner. Meridian cautions the skeptical student not to harbor a cynical attitude toward the criminal justice system. The minister assures him that his white liberal friend, Parnell, will be an advocate for justice in the case of Richard’s death. In the next scene at the Britten home, however, Parnell warns Lyle of the imminent arrival of the sheriff, who will charge him with the murder of Meridian’s son. Lyle refuses to escape arrest and the possibility of punishment because he is confident he will not be convicted of the crime.

In a flashback scene, Richard tells Juanita about his troubled life in New York. A struggling musician, he nevertheless attracted the attentions of white women and engaged in meaningless affairs with them. Lacking a sense of dignity, he succumbed to the allure of drugs and found himself in jail as a consequence of his addiction. Back in his southern hometown, Richard now wants to live a life of integrity. Juanita admits she cares for him and tells of her willingness to act as his guardian angel.

At Meridian’s church, Parnell defends Lyle’s racist attitudes and behavior as being the result of his lowly socioeconomic status. He characterizes Lyle as a “poor white man” who has “been just as victimized in this part of the world as the blacks have been!” Unmoved by Parnell’s defense of his friend, Meridian asks him to take Lyle into his confidence to learn if he murdered Richard. The scene ends with Parnell unwilling either to grant or reject the minister’s request.

Act 2 begins at the Britten house, where white church members have gathered to support the exoneration of Lyle. Parnell angers the group with his suggestion that African Americans be allowed to sit on the jury in order to permit a fair trial. After the church members leave (and while Lyle changes clothes offstage), Jo questions Parnell about her husband’s affair with Willa Mae. Believing that Lyle does not love her, Jo asks Parnell if it is possible for her husband to be in love with a black woman. Parnell does not answer her question directly, but instead tells of his own adolescent affair with a black girl. His heartfelt telling of the ill-fated romance convinces Jo that Lyle could have loved his former black mistress and killed her husband to be rid of him.

Parnell accompanies Lyle to his store, where Lyle tells of the confrontation he had there with Richard. A flashback scene dramatizes this incident, which begins when Richard and a group of college students walk past Lyle’s store. Richard decides to enter the store despite knowing of a boycott of the business by African Americans protesting the killing of Willa Mae’s husband. Hearing the sound of someone hammering from a back room, the young man sees that Jo must wait on customers. He selects two bottles of a soft drink and claims he has nothing smaller than a twenty dollar bill to pay for the beverages, which cost only twenty cents. When Jo admits that the store is short on change, Richard assumes a derisive manner. Lyle enters to defend his wife, and a series of insults leads to a fight which leaves the store owner on the floor with Richard laughing at him.

Act 3 takes place in a courtroom. The judge’s bench is center stage, separating black and white spectators. The state produces witnesses to defame the memory of the victim instead of trying to prove the guilt of the defendant, and Jo thus becomes the state’s most damaging witness. In her retelling of the events which led to the confrontation between Richard and her husband, she implies that Richard attempted to rape her. When Lyle tried to come to her defense, she claims, Richard and another black man overpowered him. Jo contends that she persuaded her husband not to tell the authorities about Richard’s attack in order to spare the town any further racial disturbances. Later during the trial, the state calls Parnell to the witness stand; he is the only white person (other than Lyle) who could refute Jo’s testimony. Parnell makes a feeble attempt to imply that Jo may have perjured herself, but, unwilling to contradict her statements explicitly, he allows the truth to be obscured.

As expected by this time, the jury acquits Lyle, and the white townspeople celebrate the decision. Lyle rebukes Parnell for his attempt to cast doubt on Jo’s testimony—he feels the action betrayed their white racial allegiance. Meridian asks Lyle if he killed his son, knowing that the store owner, having been acquitted, cannot be retried for the murder. In a flashback scene, Lyle is shown with Richard outside a black juke joint. Lyle demands an apology for the confrontation they had in his store; Richard refuses. Lyle produces a gun, but the young man shows no fear and boldly questions Lyle’s racial myths and demented desire to kill him. Lyle shoots Richard twice and exclaims he had to kill him because, “I’m a white man! Can’t nobody talk that way to me.”

After Lyle’s confession and exit, Meridian admits to having hidden a gun belonging to Richard under his pulpit Bible. He utters a grim prophecy: “You know, for us, it all began with the Bible and the gun. Maybe it will end with the Bible and the gun.” Meridian and several college students exit to join a protest march, leaving Parnell and Juanita alone on the stage. Parnell asks the young woman if he can join her in the march. Juanita replies, “Well, we can walk in the same direction.” Juanita exits and “after a moment, Parnell follows.”

Dramatic Devices

Blues for Mister Charlie calls for a set which mirrors the division between the races in the United States. Acts 1 and 2 utilize a skeletal framework of an African American church. On one side of the set, the audience views scenes taking place in the black community, while on the other side it sees scenes occurring in the white side of town. An aisle divides the two stage spaces and serves as the symbolic gulf separating the two races. This gulf between the black and white communities is quite apparent in act 3, which utilizes the skeleton of a courthouse. The judge’s bench sits center stage and separates black and white spectators. The loyalties of both groups are unwavering: As each witness testifies, in turn, each side speaks in unison to give its racially biased opinions on the testimony. The set design places African Americans and whites in opposition to one another to emphasize the point that one cannot vacillate in his opinions on racial concerns, for there is no middle ground.

Monologues are used effectively throughout the play to reveal the internal conflicts of the characters as they attempt to come to terms with their own racial attitudes. Perhaps the best example of this occurs in act 3 when Parnell has been called to the witness stand. Parnell reveals through a monologue that he is obsessed with wanting to be with black people: “I’ve wanted my hands full of them, wanted to drown them, laughing and dancing and making love—making love—wow!—and be transformed, formed, liberated out of this grey-white envelope.” Though he wants to be with them, he also admits that he fears African Americans, since he knows there is no mutual love between them. The monologue reinforces the image of Parnell as a character who cannot reconcile his private distorted racial views and his public statements claiming there to be no difference between the races.

Throughout the play, music reinforces the mood of the scenes and comments on the action. Music, both vocal and instrumental, is used most effectively in act 3. As the act begins, the audience hears a choir singing the gospel standard, “I Said I Wasn’t Going to Tell Nobody, But I Couldn’t Keep It to Myself.” The song, sung from offstage, provides an obvious comment on the function of the witnesses in this scene which dramatizes the trial of Lyle. When whites take the witness stand, music is conspicuously absent; in contrast, as each of the African Americans testifies, the audience hears a song associated with that person. For example, when a student protester testifies, the audience hears the song “I Woke Up This Morning With My Mind Stayed on Freedom.” Audience members of the 1960’s would recognize it as a popular song associated with the Civil Rights movement. Another effective use of music occurs when Meridian’s mother takes the witness stand to speak of her murdered grandson. The audience hears the sound of Richard playing a tune first heard in act 1. The music serves as a poignant reminder of Richard and makes his unseen presence felt by the audience.

Critical Context

Blues for Mister Charlie was written during one of the most turbulent periods in the racial history of the United States. After nearly three hundred years of protest and a century after the Emancipation Proclamation, most African Americans still found themselves without the same civil rights and standard of living enjoyed by white Americans. In the early 1960’s, the nation experienced thousands of demonstrations against discrimination in employment, education, housing, and the use of public facilities. White racists injured and murdered African Americans and their white sympathizers. Militant segregationists did not exempt black children or churches from their wrath. In one of the most hideous incidents of the period, a bomb thrown into the basement of a Birmingham, Alabama, church killed four girls and injured twenty-one other people. The governors of Alabama and Mississippi unsuccessfully tried to block the admittance of black students to their all-white “public” universities. Hostile feelings between African Americans and whites led to race riots in New York City, Jersey City, and Philadelphia. Nonviolent solutions began to seem ineffective to many African Americans, who saw little progress in the improvement of race relations and the socioeconomic status of African Americans.

Within this historical contest, James Baldwin wrote Blues for Mister Charlie primarily to educate white audiences concerning the plight of African Americans. The drama was inspired by a real murder, in 1955, of a fourteen-year-old black Chicagoan named Emmett Till. While visiting relatives in a small town in Mississippi, Emmett allegedly flirted with a married white woman. Two white men kidnapped and murdered the youth, and an all-white jury acquitted the men, who later confessed to the crime with no remorse. Blues for Mister Charlie illustrates graphically how racism obstructs justice, as evidenced by the case of Emmett Till.

Bibliography

Bloom, Harold, ed. James Baldwin. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2006. Part of the Bloom’s Biocritiques series, this collection comprises four extended biographical essays on the author’s accomplishments. Bloom also edited a 2007 volume with the same title featuring critical essays on specific Baldwin works and genres.

Hernton, Calvin C. “A Fiery Baptism.” In James Baldwin. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974. Comments on the negative reaction of whites and the positive reaction of African Americans to the performance of the play. Argues that Blues for Mister Charlie forces whites to face themselves squarely and to confront their fears and guilt. Asserts that the play severed “the romantic involvement between James Baldwin and white America.”

Jones, Mary E. James Baldwin. Atlanta, Ga.: Atlanta University, 1971. Short literary biography with an extensive and valuable bibliography of works by and on Baldwin. The bibliography includes several pieces of criticism and interpretation of Blues for Mister Charlie.

Leeming, David. James Baldwin: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1994. This major biography of Baldwin devotes an entire chapter to Blues for Mister Charlie.

Margolies, Edward. “The Negro Church: James Baldwin and the Christian Vision.” In Native Sons. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1968. Argues that the spirit of evangelism from the black church is everywhere in Baldwin’s works. Margolies sees Blues for Mister Charlie as a play in which Baldwin’s “apocalypse” is translated “into concrete social terms.”

Meserve, Walter. “James Baldwin’s ’Agony Way.’” In The Black American Writer. Vol. 2. Compiled by C. W. E. Bigsby. Deland, Fla.: Everett/Edwards, 1969. Argues that Baldwin is not a very accomplished dramatist, but that he does have a message that he manages to convey effectively. Notes that there is not much action and that the play’s emphasis is on rhetoric and dialogue.

Sharma, Asha. James Baldwin: Protest and Beyond. New Delhi, India: Rajat, 2005. Extended study of the role of protest in Baldwin’s work and the role of his work in African American protest fiction.

Sternlicht, Sanford. A Reader’s Guide to Modern American Drama. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2002. Overview of the history of modern drama in the United States, including a section on Baldwin placing his work in the context of theatrical history.

Weatherby, W. J. James Baldwin: Artist on Fire. New York: Donald I. Fine, 1989. The standard biography of Baldwin, examining his life from his boyhood to his death. Delves into his early sexual ambivalence. Traces his career as an artist with an examination of the circumstances surrounding all of his publications, detailing both his successes and his disappointments.