Tag Archives: Black History

Charles S. Gilpin as “The Emperor Jones”

DescriptionEnglish: Charles S. Gilpin in his role as “The Emperor Jones,” photographed by James Abbe. “Eugene O’Neill’s remarkable playlet, ‘The Emperor Jones’ done by the ambitious Provincetown Players in Greenwich Village, brought forward a splendid negro actor, Charles S. Gilpin. From printers’ devil to barnstorming, Gilpin fought his way to the New York stage, arriving as the faithful slave in ‘Abraham Lincoln.’ The Provincetown Players had the courage to give him his opportunity in the O’Neill study in primitive fear, revolving around a Pullman porter who becomes emperor of a South Sea isle.”
Date1921
SourceShadowland (https://archive.org/details/Shadowland0306/page/n35/mode/2up?view=theater)
AuthorJames Abbe

Portrait of an Old Woman

DescriptionEnglish: Photographic illustration from Paul Laurence Dunbar’s When Malindy Sings by members of the Hampton Institute Camera Club
Date1903
SourceWhen Malindy Sings (https://archive.org/details/whenmalindysings00dunb_0/page/40/mode/2up)
AuthorAnonymous

It is sobering to think that this woman probably spent her entire youth in slavery.