ABSTRACT
Between 1919 and 1938, the Communist Party supported a resurgence of African American arts production depicting a more authentic Black experience without a hidden transcript couched in comedy or music. Critiquing The Scottsboro Limited, about the infamous Scottsboro Boys, Langston Hughes was one playwright who, for a time, was both Black and Red. This chapter looks at the appeal of the Communist Party and discusses how Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration Federal Theatre Projects “Negro Units” were formed, in part, to coax back the best and the brightest of African American artists who had been leaning left.
