October 8, 1960
On October 8, 1960, the New York Amsterdam News featured an article regarding a revival of Arnaud d’Usseau and James Gow’s play, Deep Are the Roots, which first premiered on Broadway in 1945. In this play, Brett Charles, an African-American lieutenant, has difficulty reintegrating into society as a second-class citizen after the war. The producers also incorporated an interracial love story between Charles and a childhood friend. This play centered on racial equality in the United States during the twentieth century. The revival of this play in 1960, reintroduced when the civil rights movement rose, reiterated the necessity for a serious change. The playwrights encouraged that white Americans and African Americans should not hate one another, but rather they should unite, coexist, and love one another. This play explicitly encouraged African Americans to defy societal norms and instead, strive for equality.
In 1945, did playwrights envision this composition as a potential vision of reality for the future? The ideas of social equality and methods to achieve these results existed preceding the civil rights movement, but did the themes present in the original production of this play contribute to this movement?