This past December 2019, I spent Christmastime with my eldest daughter, my son-in-love and their two gifts to me, 15-year-old grandson, Xavion, and 11-year-old granddaughter, Imani. As I worked to find some common conversational ground with the two of them — one of whom spent a large amount of time on her phone, and the other, spectacular amounts of time on his Xbox. I saw a book in my granddaughter’s room, a book that came to mind recently when I saw that the Indiana Repertory Theatre was going to put on a play adapted from it. On Saturday night, February 22nd, I saw a superb performance of The Watson’s Go To Birmingham, 1963.
I did no research into the book, or the play; I was just excited about the opportunity to share an experience with my granddaughter. I sat stage right in a diverse audience with this publication’s Creative Director, Paula Nicewanger as Jennifer Turner, IRT’s Director of Development gave the assembled audience some information about the Inclusion Series and the 12,000 or more students who had already been to matinées of the upcoming play. Cheryl L. West’s adaptation of Christopher Paul Curtis’s book condensed the story and reduced the number of characters.
Tiffany Gilliam, as Mama Watson and Bryant Bentley as Daddy, load up the car for a 765-mile drive from Flint Michigan, to Birmingham Alabama to see Grandma Sands. Coolers of food and drinks compete for space in the car with their two boys, Kenny and Byron, and their daughter, Joey. The route they were to take on the drive required them to consult The Green Book, a travel guide developed to help African Americans find safe and welcoming accommodations while traveling. The guide was developed by Harlem-based postal carrier Victor Hugo Green and first published in 1936. The Watsons travel, with perseverance and humor, into a place where peril is not just possible, but probable, and find themselves in the midst of history.
The three Watson children are portrayed by Xavier Adams as Kenny, Brian Wilson as Byron and Dalila Yoder as Joey; their polished performances, with second-grader Dalila portraying a highly animated Joey, provide a youthful counterbalance to some sobering racial interactions on the road. After arriving at Mama’s home in Alabama, they are heart-wrenching witnesses to the events at Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church.
In my conversation with my granddaughter, I asked her if she knew what the pivotal event was about, in the book. She did not, and said that the bombing of the church was the scariest part for her. She laughed about the “Wool Pooh” from which Byron saves Kenny, and the “tongue stuck on the mirror.” When I asked her about the racial tensions that were prominent in 1963, Imani said that her teacher explained to her that the events chronicle “the way it was, back then,” but she doesn’t feel that anything in her life, right now, approximates the relationships of those days.
On September 15th, 1963, I was a sophomore in high school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and though that day was a pivotal one in American history, I cannot remember what the response was in my neighborhood, or even recall coverage of it. As I watched the IRT production, I saw, projected on the backdrop, the legend, “Flint Michigan is 765 miles away from Birmingham Alabama”; Pittsburgh Pennsylvania is 762.2 miles from Birmingham. As the IRT performance and the Q & A with the cast members and the audience indicated, we are all connected to the Watsons, to Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins and Cynthia Wesley, and Birmingham Alabama.
cjon3acd@att.net