African Americans

The nature of African American character and identity is central to the collection's narratives and its themes. The author makes this clear in the essays at the beginning of the collection (see Section 1). There she states, in both metaphoric and literal terms, that at least in her perspective and opinion, it is essential for African Americans to develop and own a sense of who they are, as both individuals and as a racial community, free from the long predominant and/or oppressive attitudes of White Americans. Her explorations and dramatizations of that perspective come to life in the central characters in all her plays, all of whom are African American and all of whom deal with individualized variations on what the author contends is the struggle of her people in general - who am I as a person, and who am I as an African American person...