In August WilsonÆs (1988) drama Joe TurnerÆs Come and Gone presents two worlds in North and South America early in the twentieth century. The South still tyrannizes African Americans and unjustly imprisons them as slave labor despite emancipation coming a half century earlier. The North represents a lure to dissatisfied African Americans in the South, promising jobs and material success because of the burgeoning industrial revolution. These distinctions are important to one of WilsonÆs main points in the play. Wilson argues that African Americans will never be free until they recognize that in a capitalist society those who profit must exploit the labor of others. Wilson uses character and diction to demonstrate that both South and North America represent the same potential for being enslaved to African Americans.
Herald Loomis was captured by Joe Turner, binding him to a chain gang and hard labor for seven years. Loomis, though looking for his wife, wanders North in search of her and a better life in the industrial North. Hoping to find his wife and take advantage of the growing industrialism in the North, Loomis takes a room at a boarding house in Pittsburgh. The steel industry was booming and Pittsburgh represented the heart of steel production and industrialism. It also characterized some of the worst environmental degradation and inhumane treatment of workers ever seen in American industry. Loomis ascribes to no religion after his subjection to the tyranny against African Americans in the South. HeraldÆs boarding-house owner, Seth, has become ôsuccessfulö running his own business. However, he exploits African Americans for his profit and he views African Americans from the south as uneducated and backward, ôThese niggers coming up here with that old backward country style of living. ItÆs hard enough now without all that ignorant kind of acting. Ever since slavery
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