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Richard Henry
Meridian Henry, father to Richard Henry and son to Mother Henry, is a Black Christian minister in an unnamed town in the U.S. South. When his son is about 14, his wife dies in a fall at a white hotel. Meridian suspects that a white man pushed her but doesn’t know for sure. In his grief and horror, he allows Richard to live with his Aunt Edna in New York City and throws himself into his ministry. During the Civil Rights Movement, he organizes college students protesting for social justice, including Juanita Harmon, Lorenzo Shannon, and Pete Spivey. He grows close to Juanita and develops romantic feelings for her but never acts on them. After Richard comes home to recover from his heroin addiction and reignites a love affair with Juanita, Meridian encourages the match. After racist white store owner Lyle Britten murders Richard, Meridian becomes progressively disillusioned with his religion and his nonviolent approach to protest, wondering whether Christianity robs Black people of their dignity and whether he made a mistake in cautioning Black protestors not to get guns. At Lyle’s trial for Richard’s murder, Meridian speaks out strongly against the sensationalized and racist characterization of Richard by Lyle’s defense attorney (called The State), thereby feeling that he may have finally earned the title of minister.
Meridian Henry Quotes in Blues for Mister Charlie
The Blues for Mister Charlie quotes below are all either spoken by Meridian Henry or refer to Meridian Henry. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act 1
Quotes
Ken: How much does your wife charge?
Meridian: Now you got it. You really got it now. That’s them. Keep walking, Arthur. Keep walking!
Tom: You get your ass off these streets from around here, boy, or we going to do us some cutting—we’re going to cut that big, black thing off of you, you hear?
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Lorenzo: Mother Henry, I got a lot of respect for you and all that, and for Meridian too, but that white man’s God is white. It’s that damn white God that’s been lynching us and burning us and castrating us and raping our women and robbing us of everything that makes a man a man for all these hundreds of years. Now, why we sitting around here, in His house?
Richard: Every one of them’s got some piss-assed, faggoty white boy on a string somewhere. They go home and marry him, dig, when they can’t make it with me no more—but when they want some loving, funky, down-home, bring-it-on-here-and-put-it-on-the-table style—
Juanita: They sound very sad. It must be very sad for you, too.
Meridian: Of course, if you go back far enough, you get to a point before Christ, if you see what I mean, B.C.—and at that point, I’ve been thinking, black people weren’t raised to turn the other cheek, and in the hope of heaven. No, then they didn’t have to take low. Before Christ. They walked around just as good as anybody else, and when they died, they didn’t go to heaven, they went to join their ancestors.
Parnell: He’s a poor white man. The poor whites have been just as victimized in this part of the world as the blacks have ever been!
Parnell: Meridian—what you ask—I don’t know if I can do it for you.
Meridian: I don’t want you to do it for me. I want you to do it for you.
Act 3
Quotes
Juanita: I am not responsible for your imagination.
Meridian: I don’t think that the alleged object was my son’s type at all!
The State: And you are a minister?
Meridian: I think I may be beginning to become one.
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Lyle: You ain’t no better than me!
Parnell: I am aware of that. God knows I have been made aware of that—for the first time in my life.
Get the entire Blues for Mister Charlie LitChart as a printable PDF.
Meridian Henry Quotes in Blues for Mister Charlie
The Blues for Mister Charlie quotes below are all either spoken by Meridian Henry or refer to Meridian Henry. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act 1
Quotes
Ken: How much does your wife charge?
Meridian: Now you got it. You really got it now. That’s them. Keep walking, Arthur. Keep walking!
Tom: You get your ass off these streets from around here, boy, or we going to do us some cutting—we’re going to cut that big, black thing off of you, you hear?
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Lorenzo: Mother Henry, I got a lot of respect for you and all that, and for Meridian too, but that white man’s God is white. It’s that damn white God that’s been lynching us and burning us and castrating us and raping our women and robbing us of everything that makes a man a man for all these hundreds of years. Now, why we sitting around here, in His house?
Richard: Every one of them’s got some piss-assed, faggoty white boy on a string somewhere. They go home and marry him, dig, when they can’t make it with me no more—but when they want some loving, funky, down-home, bring-it-on-here-and-put-it-on-the-table style—
Juanita: They sound very sad. It must be very sad for you, too.
Meridian: Of course, if you go back far enough, you get to a point before Christ, if you see what I mean, B.C.—and at that point, I’ve been thinking, black people weren’t raised to turn the other cheek, and in the hope of heaven. No, then they didn’t have to take low. Before Christ. They walked around just as good as anybody else, and when they died, they didn’t go to heaven, they went to join their ancestors.
Parnell: He’s a poor white man. The poor whites have been just as victimized in this part of the world as the blacks have ever been!
Parnell: Meridian—what you ask—I don’t know if I can do it for you.
Meridian: I don’t want you to do it for me. I want you to do it for you.
Act 3
Quotes
Juanita: I am not responsible for your imagination.
Meridian: I don’t think that the alleged object was my son’s type at all!
The State: And you are a minister?
Meridian: I think I may be beginning to become one.
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Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Lyle: You ain’t no better than me!
Parnell: I am aware of that. God knows I have been made aware of that—for the first time in my life.
