(There is a tense silence. Julia turns from Chris, and drops her hand. He moves slowly to the window and looks out. The door opens quietly, and Cornelia Lewis comes in. She stands still a moment, as if sensing a difficult situation)

CORNELIA: I’ve heard about it, Chris, your country calls you.

(Chris turns from the window and waves hopeless hands at Dan and Lucy)

Yes, I understand; they do need you, don’t they?

DAN: (fiercely) No!

LUCY: Yes, we do, Chris, we do need you, but your country needs you more. And, above that, your race is calling you to carry on its good name, and with that, the voice of humanity is calling to us all—we can manage without you, Chris.

CHRIS: You? Poor little crippled Sister. Poor Dan—

DAN: Don’t pity me, pity your poor, weak self.

CHRIS: (clenching his fist) Brother, you’ve called me two names today that no man ought to have to take—a slacker and a weakling!

DAN: True. Aren’t you both?

(Leans back and looks at Chris speculatively)

CHRIS: (Makes an angry lunge towards the chair, then flings his hands above his head in an impatient gesture)

Oh, God!

(Turns back to the window)

JULIA: Chris, it’s wicked for them to taunt you so—but Chris—it is our country—our race—

(Outside the strains of music from a passing band are heard. The music comes faintly, gradually growing louder and louder until it reaches a crescendo. The tune is “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” played in stirring march time)

DAN: (singing softly) “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”

CHRIS: (turns from the window and straightens his shoulders) And Mine!

CORNELIA: “As he died to make men holy, let us die to make them free!”

MRS. O’NEILL: An’ ye’ll make the sacrifice, me boy, an’ ye’ll be the happier.

JAKE: Sacrifice! No sacrifice for him, it’s those who stay behind. Ah, if they would only call me, and call me soon!

LUCY: We’ll get on, never fear. I’m proud! Proud!

(Her voice breaks a little, but her head is thrown back)

(As the music draws nearer, the group breaks up, and the whole roomful rushes to the window and looks out. Chris remains in the center of the floor, rigidly at attention, a rapt look on his face. Dan strains at his chair, as if he would rise, then sinks back, his hand feebly beating time to the music, which swells to a martial crash)

CURTAIN

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alice Dunbar Nelson (1875–1935) was an African American poet, journalist, and political activist. Born in New Orleans to a formerly enslaved seamstress and a white seaman, Dunbar Nelson was raised in the city’s traditional Creole community. In 1892, she graduated from Straight University and began working as a teacher in the New Orleans public school system. In 1895, having published her debut collection of poems and short stories, she moved to New York City, where she cofounded the White Rose Mission in Manhattan. Dunbar Nelson married poet Paul Laurence Dunbar in 1898 after several years of courtship, but their union soon proved abusive. She separated from Dunbar—whose violence and alcoholism had become intolerable—in 1902, after which Nelson taught at Howard High School in Wilmington, Delaware for around a decade. She continued to write and earned a reputation as a passionate activist for equality and the end of racial violence. Her one-act play My Eyes Have Seen (1918) was published in The Crisis, the journal of the NAACP. Dunbar Nelson settled in Philadelphia in 1932 with her third husband Robert J. Nelson and remained in the city until her death. Her career is exemplified by a mastery of literary forms—in her journalism, stories, plays, and poems, she made a place for herself in the male-dominated world of the Harlem Renaissance while remaining true to her vision of political change and social uplift for all African Americans.