Juneteenth and forgotten
black theatre creators

New York’s Mint Theatre celebrates lost African-American theatrical writing talent

By Byron Toben

Updated on June 18, 2025

“The mills of the gods grind slowly,” wrote Plutarch in the first century C.E.—a sentiment that still rings true in the world of social progress and cultural recognition.

After decades of advocacy, Juneteenth was officially declared a U.S. national holiday on June 19, 2021, by President Joe Biden, the first new national holiday since Martin Luther King’s in 1966.

Writers Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Arthur Conan Doyle, Somerset Maugham and Agatha Christie all invoked the phrase, as did politicians Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

African-American poet Georgia Douglas Johnson was one of the earliest African-American female playwrights and an important figure of the Harlem Renaissance – Image: Public Domain

On June 17, 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden finally declared June 19 to be an official national holiday to be called Juneteenth, the first new national holiday since Martin Luther King’s in 1966. Juneteenth celebrates the official end of slavery in the USA.

Here’s a timeline of its slow emergence:

1619 – The first shipment of 20 black slaves to North America arrives in the colony of Virginia.
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1808 – The Slave trade (but not slavery itself) ended in the British Empire.
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1834 – Slavery was abolished in the British Empire, which included Canada.
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1860 – The number of slaves in the USA had grown to 3,953,760, mostly in the South.
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1861 – On April 12, eleven Confederate states began a civil War of Secession from the remaining 23 Union states.
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1863 – On January 1, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation immediately freed slaves in the Union-controlled Confederate States (Freeing those in non-confederate states required a lengthy changing of the U.S. Constitution.)
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Willis Richardson was awarded the prestigious AUDELCO prize posthumously for his contribution to American theatre – Image: Public Domain

1865 – April 9 brings the surrender of the Confederate Army, which freed slaves in the balance of formerly Confederate-controlled states.
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1865 – April 15 – Assassination of Lincoln
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1865 – June 19 – Texas was finally informed of the end of the war and freedom for slaves by the arrival of Union troops in Galveston. Many Southern slave owners, sensing their defeat, had moved with their slaves to Texas.
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1865 – December 6 – 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolishes slavery in the United States
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1866 to 1966 – Juneteenth, under various similar names, was celebrated in black communities and slowly adopted by some states as state holidays or days of observance in a century of Jim Crow laws and other attempts to suppress voting.

However, the emergence of Women’s Lib and Black Lib led to advances that slowly picked up steam during the past 55 years as persons of colour are slowly recognized for their talents and contributions to sports, politics, business, the military, education and entertainment. All of which leads to my usual focus on theatre.

American author, anthropologist and filmmaker Zora Neale Hurston wrote more than 50 short stories, plays, and essays – Image: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The long and slow journey toward recognition for Black artists, especially playwrights, continues. While names like Lorraine Hansberry, August Wilson, Lynn Nottage, and Suzan-Lori Parks are now rightly celebrated, many other Black playwrights from the Harlem Renaissance and beyond remain overlooked.

The Mint Theatre Company in New York, renowned for its mission to unearth and revive “lost voices,” has made a concerted effort to spotlight these neglected talents through its ongoing Lost Voices in Black History series. The initiative, co-curated by S.J. de Matteo and Aviva Helena Neff, has featured works such as Georgia Douglas Johnson’s Blue Blood and Angelina Weld Grimké’s Rachel, as well as experimental pieces like Georgia Douglas Johnson’s Plumes and Marita Bonner’s The Purple Flower, the latter widely credited as the first known avant-garde play by an American woman of color.

The Mint’s programming in 2025 continues its commitment to rediscovering and staging forgotten works. Recent and upcoming productions include Harold Brighouse’s Garside’s Career (February–March 2025), Sally Carson’s Crooked Cross (September–November 2025), and the New York premiere of Lynn Riggs’ Sump’n Like Wings (opening September 21, 2025). While not all of these plays are by Black playwrights, the company’s archival and educational efforts have brought renewed attention to the contributions of African-American dramatists, especially those whose works were marginalized in their own time.

This renewed interest comes at a moment when Black playwrights are receiving overdue recognition on the national stage. In May 2025, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Purpose, a play that premiered at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre and is now on Broadway. Meanwhile, Alice Childress, whose Trouble in Mind finally made its Broadway debut in 2021, was posthumously honoured with a Lucille Lortel Special Award in 2025, further cementing her legacy as a trailblazer in American theatre.

As the Mint Theatre and other institutions continue to elevate lost and overlooked Black voices, the hope is that these artists will finally receive the recognition they deserve, not just as part of Black history, but as an essential part of American and world theatre.

Readers’ suggestions or comments on which forgotten playwrights or plays should be revived next are always welcome.

Feature image: Juneteenth flag, National Juneteenth Celebration Foundation

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Byron Toben, former president of the Montreal Press Club, was a prolific writer, esteemed critic, and beloved figure within Montreal’s cultural community. As WestmountMag.ca’s theatre reviewer for the past decade, his thoughtful critiques became a defining feature of the publication. Earlier in his career, he contributed to Rover Arts, Charlebois Post, The Downtowner, and The Senior Times.