Magnolia, atlanta and dr. Martin luther king jr. a ... - Goodman Theatre

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IN THE ALBERT LEFT: Photo of Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. and actress Olivia de Havilland in a parade on Peachtree Street in Atlanta, Georgia, celebrating the re-release of the motion picture Gone with the Wind. Courtesy of the Atlanta History Center, Joe McTyre Collection. OPPOSITE: Photo of a line of mourners during the funeral procession for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta, Georgia. Courtesy of the Atlanta History Center, Floyd Jillson Collection. a successful black real estate developer, explains it this way: “Got my own colored doctor, policeman, got Herndon for my banker—I don’t need to sleep let alone pee next to no white folk. Everything I need I got, right here in Sweet Auburn.” William, a white restaurant owner who has recently desegregated his restaurant, explains it like this: “Colored protest is bad for business. Atlanta’s no Little Rock…Myself, I’ll never drink from the same fountain as a Negro.” As the late 1950s and early 1960s brought a tidal wave of change to the established order in the South, Atlanta promoted itself as “the city too busy to hate.” Following the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, decision, Washington pressured southern cities to integrate their schools. Little Rock, Arkansas, went first—and when nine black students were admitted to and attempted to enter Central High School, the city erupted in violence that persisted until President Eisenhower dispatched the 101st Airborne Division to restore order. When it came time for Atlanta to integrate, Mayor William B. Hartsfield vowed that “what happened in Little Rock won’t happen here.” On August 30, 1961, nine children were peacefully integrated into four Atlanta high schools. Civic leaders boasted that it was “the silence heard around the world.” Though Martin Luther King Jr. initially resisted following in his father’s footsteps, he decided to enter the ministry during his senior year at Atlanta’s Morehouse College. He studied first at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, and then received a doctorate at Boston University, where he met and married Coretta Scott. After graduation, he and Coretta traveled south to Montgomery, Alabama, where King served as the pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. It was during King’s five years in Montgomery that he was catapulted to international fame for his role in the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement, beginning with his leadership during the Montgomery bus boycott. In 1959, King moved back to Atlanta where he established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference headquartered on Auburn Avenue and joined his father as co-pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church. By 1963, the year in which Magnolia is set, civic leaders were struggling to maintain Atlanta’s image as “the city too busy to hate,” but the strain was starting to show. By 1963, the year in which Magnolia is set, civic leaders were struggling to maintain Atlanta’s image as “the city too busy to hate,” but the strain was starting to show. In 1960, King participated in a sit-in to protest segregation at Rich’s Department Store in downtown Atlanta. He was arrested and sentenced to four months in Reidsville Penitentiary. In 1961, Ivan Allen Jr., member of a prominent white Atlanta family and president of the Atlanta 4
The Civil Rights Movement, 1954–1968 May, 1954 In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, The Supreme Court unanimously rules public school segregation unconstitutional. August, 1954 In Mississippi, 14-yearold Emmett Till is murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman. December, 1955 In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leads a bus boycott that lasts for more than a year. February, 1957 In Greensboro, North Carolina, four black students stage a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter in Woolworth’s. September, 1957 In Little Rock, Arkansas, President Eisenhower sends federal troops and the National Guard to escort the “Little Rock Nine” into Central High School. November, 1960 John F. Kennedy is elected President of the United States. 1961 Students volunteer for bus trips (“freedom rides”) through the South to test the new laws prohibiting segregation in interstate travel facilities. October, 1962 President Kennedy sends federal troops to the University of Mississippi when riots break out over the enrollment of the first black student, James Meredith. December, 1962 Atlanta mayor Ivan Allen Jr. orders the erection of Peyton Wall to separate a white neighborhood from an adjacent black neighborhood. 1963 Regina Taylor’s play Magnolia takes place. April, 1963 While protesting in Birmingham, Alabama, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is imprisoned and writes the famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” June, 1963 Mississippi’s NAACP field secretary, Medgar Evers, is murdered. August, 1963 In Washington, D.C., Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. November, 1963 President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas. January, 1964 The 24th Amendment abolishes the poll tax. March, 1964 In Selma, Alabama, in an incident the media dubs “Bloody Sunday,” police use clubs, whips and tear gas on black protestors. July, 1964 President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964. August, 1964 The Ku Klux Klan murders three civil-rights workers in Neshoba County, Mississippi. December, 1964 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. February, 1965 Malcolm X is assassinated in Harlem, New York. August, 1965 Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965. September, 1965 President Johnson issues Executive Order 11246, enforcing affirmative action. April, 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Chamber of Commerce, negotiated a peaceful desegregation of the city’s lunch counters. That same year, Allen ran for mayor and won, defeating Lester Maddox, an Atlanta restaurant owner who ran on a strong segregationist platform. Despite his own segregationist past, Allen had courted—and won— the endorsement of The Atlanta Negro Voters League, key to securing the support of the city’s black community. Like Mayor Hartsfield before him, Allen saw the “race issue” in largely pragmatic terms. During the summer of 1962, however, less than a year into his first term as mayor, Allen’s approach was sorely tested. Although the city was in the midst of an economic boom, the median income of black families was less than half that of white families. And although blacks represented 40 percent of the city’s population, they lived on only 24 percent of the residential land. That summer, black realtors had started to drive through the Utoy-Peyton Forest subdivision of Cascade Heights, a white upper-middle-class enclave of Atlanta. The interest of black realtors stirred the apprehension of white residents determined to prevent blacks from buying into their community. The Cascade Heights residents turned to Ivan Allen Jr. for help, asking that he close the two roads that connected Cascade Heights to an adjacent black neighborhood. On December 19, with the support of 13 members of the Atlanta Board of Aldermen, Allen obliged. There’s a story—perhaps apocryphal— that as Mayor Hartsfield was handing over the keys to the mayor’s office, he advised his young successor “never [to] make a mistake you can take a picture of.” In erecting two wood and steel barriers, each affixed with the sign “Road Closed,” Atlanta’s new mayor had made the city’s racial lines visible to the world. Likened to the Berlin Wall, Atlanta’s Peyton Wall generated unwanted attention. It stood as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, for his part in a non-violent protest conducted against segregation. There he penned the famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” decrying the evils of segregation and making an impassioned argument for the need to resist injustice now—and in the weeks and months following the events in Birmingham, there was an explosion of black protest on an unprecedented scale. Surprised by the force of the protests, the Kennedy administration moved to pass a sweeping Civil Rights Bill. Sensing an opportunity to influence the federal government, King and his fellow civil rights lead- 5
Page 1 and 2: March - May 2009 Magnolia, atlanta
Page 3 and 4: IN THE ALBERT From the Artistic Dir
Page 5: OPPOSITE: Photo of Dr. Martin Luthe
Page 9 and 10: An Interview with Playwright Regina
Page 11 and 12: Suzanne Douglas and Jason Delane in
Page 13 and 14: NA: And is that mode more about hei
Page 15 and 16: Once Upon a Time… The Story of
Page 17 and 18: Taking the Stage: A Celebration of
Page 19 and 20: Ruined Opens at Manhattan Theatre C
Page 21 and 22: The Goodman Receives Second Joyce A
Page 23 and 24: Goodman Preferred Hotel: Hotel Sax

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