Acknowledgments from Playwright Ifa Bayeza
First and last – to Mamie Till-Mobley and to her son Emmett Louis Till, whose courage and faith continue to inform, enlighten, and inspire, words cannot say… The world owes you its debt, and I am but a dweller upon it. I thank you for the privilege of walking with you a ways.
I am especially indebted to the African American press, including the Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, and Johnson Publications’ Jet and Ebony magazines, for their definitive and comprehensive coverage of Emmett Till’s murder. I began my research here, but it was only the beginning.
While I researched numerous primary resources—news articles, letters, film and photographic archival material—I created this narrative primarily from first-hand accounts. I wish to thank Emmett’s extended family, all of whom have been most generous with their time, memories, and insight. In Argo, Pastor Wheeler Parker, Jr., Elder Simeon Wright, childhood friends John Goodwin and Turner Goodwin: their wonderful stories helped me to see Emmett in life. I also thank Heluise Woods for saving her 50-year-old letter from “Bobo.”
In Chicago, Anita Cochran led me to Emmett’s eighth-grade classmates Carole Adkins, Richard Heard, Millicent Conley, James Van Hoose, Barbara Barry, and James Willis, as well as Emmett’s seventh grade teacher Mr. Spears. My appreciation also goes to numerous individuals for sharing experiences of growing up in the 1950s. These include Prof. Paul Carter Harrison, Emmons Wallace, Pastor Herbert Martin, Jr., Dr. Victor Leo Walker II and Mary Johnson. Noted scholars Charles Payne, Adam Green and Drs. Linda and David Beito, as well as Davis Houck, deeply enriched my understanding of the Civil Rights Era. To this list of generous souls, who were kind enough to share memories and insights with me, I must add the Mississippi accounts of Mayor Johnny Thomas, Leesha Faulkner, Alison Kelly, C. Aven Whittington, III, and Laura Lee Wallace.
I am eternally grateful to Myrna Colley-Lee and Morgan Freeman for their hospitality and to the SonEdna Foundation for sanctuary during my weeks of Mississippi research. I also thank Elmo Terry-Morgan and Karen Allen-Baxter of Rites and Reason Theatre, the arts component of the Africana Studies Department of Brown University and President Ruth Simmons, along with Donald King and Providence Black Repertory Company, for providing the fellowship that made much of my initial research and play development possible. Special acknowledgement also to the late Marsha Z. West, resident director of Rites and Reason Theatre in Providence, for her staging of the first full reading of Till. I am honored that Jane Saks and Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in Arts and Media at Columbia College awarded me the inaugural fellowship for women playwrights of color.
Many creative colleagues helped me along the way with good counsel and red pencils. These include Sue Lawless and Lorna Littleway at the Juneteenth Festival of New Plays in Louisville; John Wesley and Ben Bradley at Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles, and Nena St. Louis in a world of her own. I wish to especially thank director Clinton Turner Davis for his scholarly and directorial assistance in early readings of the work, Kate Whoriskey for a wonderfully inventive O’Neill Playwrights Conference experience, and director/dramaturg Anna Bahow for her faith in the play from the beginning.
The entire Goodman Theatre staff was superbly supportive of the world premiere of The Ballad of Emmett Till in 2008. Special thanks to Executive Director Roche Schulfer, Artistic Director Bob Falls, General Manager Kathy Murphy, and Literary Manager Tanya Palmer. I will be eternally grateful to Peter Bynoe, a trustee at the Goodman and life-long friend, for bringing my work to the theatre’s attention. Since we first met on the steps of Cabot Hall, Peter has been a colleague and constant supporter. Likewise director Oz Scott from our very early days on the Lower East Side of New York. The Goodman marked our first production collaboration since for colored girls… It took far too long.
My thanks also to the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles for providing the play with its second home and giving me the opportunity to shape the work into the lean and intense ensemble drama that it is today. Particular appreciation for the sharp eye of director Shirley Jo Finney and the dramaturgical suggestions of Simon Levy and Stephen Sachs.
At the time of his death, January 1, 2010, Fountain Theatre Associate Producer Ben Bradley was working on my play. Ben was so very excited about this production. I take solace with the thought that he seemed at the height of his joy. He was in the moment, completely absorbed, possessed
with a sense of unlimited possibility. Like Emmett, the play’s young protagonist, Ben was breathing the essence of freedom, the greatest joy coming perhaps in the pursuit of happiness even more than in its capture. I ponder now his urgency, yet I am so grateful for it.
Thanks also to Eileen Morris, Artistic Director of Ensemble Theatre of Houston, for bringing The Ballad of Emmett Till to the first Black theater and the first venue in the South, and then on to the National Black Theatre Festival.
My gratitude also to Artistic Director Sarah Bellamy of Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota, for not only producing The Ballad, but embracing my vision for The Till Trilogy, by being the first theater to produce Benevolence and bringing me together with the brilliant Talvin Wilks.
To my colleagues at University of Massachusetts Amherst–midwives, mentors and students– Theater Department Professors Priscilla Page, Harley Erdman, Chris Baker, Megan Lewis, Judyie Al-Bilali, Gina Kaufman, and Gilbert McCauley, as well as staff members Julie Fife and Willow Cohen, my heartfelt thanks for supporting the evolution of the project. And to then Chair of African American Studies Department John Bracey, my particular gratitude for our numerous chats and a shout-out for bringing Sonia Sanchez as respondent to my first reading of Benevolence. Also, to Christine Hicks, Ryan Jacobucci, Jude Sandy, and Mia Ellis as that first cast, and dramaturg Gaven Trinidad and videographer Q-Mars Haeri, who showed me we had a play!
The MacDowell Colony provided me with a vital residency in the spring of 2022. I see why the place is magical.
Director Talvin Wilks deserves his own singular acknowledgement. Never has anyone taken such care and given such attention to detail with my work, embracing my vision and taking it further. Working with you has been a joy and so natural–like “salt n peppuh,” “sugar n spice.”
My thanks to Mosaic Theater’s new Artistic Director Reginald Douglas for embracing The Till Trilogy as the flagship of his first season at Mosaic, and to the theater’s former artistic director, Ari Roth, who first said, “Yes!” My gratitude also to my implacable agent Susan Gurman, always the wind at my back.
This work is about family. I would be nothing without my own–my incredible, extraordinary siblings, Ambassador Bisa Williams, ret., poet and playwright Ntozake Shange, and our rock, Paul T Williams, Esq.; my calming Zen niece Savannah Shange and my late and forever great parents Paul Towbin Williams, MD and Eloise Owens Williams. I dedicate this work to the memory of my mother, to the end, my mentor and muse.