Book with Ossie Davis Play, and
Essays on the Answer to Racism Is Released

A new book from Third World Press, edited by Alice Bernstein, was launched at the Harlem School of the Arts in New York City on November 28th: The People of Clarendon County-A Play by Ossie Davis, with Photographs and Historical Documents, and Essays on the Education That Can End Racism. That education is Aesthetic Realism, founded in 1941 by the poet and critic Eli Siegel.

This book is the newest release of the Black-owned publishing house Third World Press in Chicago, founded in 1967 by Haki Madhubuti and celebrating its 40th anniversary last year. On hand at the launch were film/theater legend and civil rights activist Ruby Dee, and Black News columnist and Aesthetic Realism Associate Alice Bernstein.

The short play was written in 1955 by actor/activist Ossie Davis. It chronicles the courage of Reverend Joseph DeLaine and other African American parents in Clarendon County, South Carolina, who risked their lives to file the first legal challenge to segregation in the public schools. Their case, Briggs v. Elliott, was later combined with four others, by Thurgood Marshall of the NAACP, as Brown v. Board of Education, and led to the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in public schools.

The People of Clarendon County, never before published, was performed only once in 1955 during what was then Black History Week, in the auditorium of union Local 1199 in New York City. The young actors were Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, and Sidney Poitier. Afterward, the play was lost to history until discovered in 2004 by Bernstein in the archives of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. With Ossie Davis' encouragement, Ms. Bernstein gathered documents and photographs by and about the real people of Clarendon County who appear as characters in his play.

At the launch, Bernstein presented excerpts from this book and was joined by colleagues Allan Michael and Dr. Arnold Perey, both contributors to her first book, Aesthetic Realism and the Answer to Racism. They told the standing room only audience of her conversations and correspondence with Ossie Davis in 2004 which led to her unearthing of The People of Clarendon County. And she described how Ossie Davis was encouraged to think of his play having new life through this book and what Aesthetic Realism explains about the cause of and answer to racism.

Drama students from the Harlem School of the Arts performed an excerpt from the play under the direction of their teacher, E. Mesiyah McGinnis. The eleven-and twelve-year-old actors were Bobbi Booth as Mary Ragin, Adrian Richburg as Rev. DeLaine, and Dimitri Carter as the Narrator and William Ragin. Their historic performance captured the brutality of racism and the hope embodied in the Supreme Court Brown decision. They were aptly followed by an exciting presentation of the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method by educator Monique Michael, a contributor to this book. Through a science lesson Mrs. Michael has taught to first graders, the audience experienced the teaching method which enables students at all grade levels to learn successfully and to become kinder!

This book brings to life a little-known chapter of Civil Rights history. It includes an account by Joseph DeLaine, Jr., of the KKK "frame-up" of his father; and the definitive commentary "Racism Can End," by the Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism, Ellen Reiss.

About this book, Ruby Dee wrote:

"It moved my husband to think that fifty years later, school children might learn about history by reading or acting in his play. In addition, Alice 's book will also inform people about the success of the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method in enabling children to learn every subject, and ending prejudice in the classroom."

At the launch, Ruby Dee announced the Campaign for the Ossie Davis Endowment, the only educational endowment of its kind named for an African American. It will provide full four-year college scholarships for African American students who demonstrate a commitment to activism in behalf of equal opportunity, honoring the legacy of Ossie Davis.

Mr. Davis was an award-winning actor, director, producer, and Civil Rights activist who worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. He wrote and starred in the Broadway hit Purlie Victorious,   and is the author of numerous teleplays and books. He passed away in 2005.

Bernstein's articles and regular column, "Alice Bernstein & Friends," appear nationwide and in Aesthetic Realism and the Answer to Racism. She is a contributing writer to African American National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2008), and is at work on The Force of Ethics in Civil Rights, an oral history project and documentary on unsung heroes.

As the book launch was concluding, Alice Bernstein acknowledged unsung heroes present in the audience, many of whom she had interviewed for her documentary. They included Tuskegee Airman Dabney Montgomery, US World War II Naval hero Lorenzo DuFau (whom Ossie Davis played in the movie Proud), Keith Beauchamp, filmmaker of The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till, along with Nathaniel Briggs and many others originally from Clarendon County, whose brave parents changed the course of American history with Briggs v. Elliott.  

Kakuna Kerina, president and CEO of the Harlem School of the Arts (HSA), stated: "It was a pleasure to hold the book launch at HSA, an institution that Ossie Davis supported for many decades.[ and] to collaborate on this important work. It was an inspiring and educational event."

Janifer Wilson, owner of Sisters Uptown Book Store in Harlem said, "It was a great event—including that so many Clarendon County family members came! The universe charged Alice Bernstein to bring forth this play by Ossie Davis in such a glorious way. The lesson on the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method was a wonderful way of educating people. It is needed because the educational system today is not working. I grew up in the South and I thank Alice Bernstein for her fearless efforts to expose racism and offer the answer."

Third World Press has been dedicated to publishing culturally progressive and politically insightful works of fiction and non-fiction since 1967. For more information, call   (773) 651-0700 or visit www.thirdworldpressinc.com.

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