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                                              ACT I  Scene 5

 

As lights shift Lorraine sings as she enters: ‘We Shall Overcome’ tying on a small apron. She may be folding napkins or setting the table throughout. She goes through a bit of the song then stops. Jimmy sits at his typewriter reading a page from her letter.

 

        LORRAINE

        (Singing) ‘Deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome some day.’ 

        The song seems somewhat incongruous with the act of setting a table

         but believe me, to a woman, nothing is incongruous.  You and I sang

         that song quite a bit, Jimmy.  We all used to sing then. As if the singing

         might wipe the fear and bitterness off of people’s faces.But, there you are  

        Three centuries of hatred need a little more than a four minute melody. 

        You are on the road so much! I missed singing with you at the memorial...

        the anniversary of Emmett Till's murder.       

  

         Most of the Negroes...the black people...in the little storefront were so choked

         with sorrow, Jimmy, they couldn't get the words out.  I was choked with irony.

         How closely tied are sex and blackness in this country?  A boy, no more than

         15 years old, beaten mercilessly and killed--by grown white men--because he's

         perceived to be a threat to white womanhood.

          It is 1956, for Gawd sake! How can I…or you…or Richard write a word

          and hope it to have a single shred of meaning? It’s as if our dark skin is a

          symbol of rampaging desire roaring in their ears! Whatever words Emmett

          Till may or may not have said to that white girl--that store clerk in Money,

          Mississippi--are irrelevant.  Emmett Till had no vice at all.  His skin did all the talking.

 

 

Lights down on Lorraine