Racism in Post-Slavery America Theme Analysis

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone takes place in 1911, 48 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, which legally liberated all slaves in the Union. Even though the play’s characters exist in a post-slavery America—and have for nearly 50 years—their lives are still influenced by the nation’s racist past and present. In particular, Herald Loomis and Jeremy’s everyday lives are directly impacted by the prejudiced and inhumane precedent set by slavery. By showcasing the tangible ways these characters continue to be affected by the legacy of slavery, Wilson suggests that acts of profound bigotry and dehumanization have long-lasting effects. As such, the characters in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone continue to re-live the horrors of slavery on a daily basis, proving that just because this crime against humanity is over according to the law doesn’t mean it has stopped harming the African Americans who inherited its traumas.

The characters in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone process the effects of racism in different ways. For instance, Jeremy acknowledges injustice without letting it break his spirits. A young black man at the mercy of white police officers and white employers, he frequently has to face racism and poor treatment, but he does so with an optimistic, cheerful attitude. When he first appears onstage, he has just been incarcerated for the night by the police because some officers wanted to confiscate the two dollars he and his friend earned from their employer. Despite this injustice, Jeremy manages to remain in good spirits, seemingly unwilling to let such virulent racism ruin his optimistic outlook on life. Wilson’s initial note about him reads: “About twenty-five, he gives the impression that he has the world in his hand, that he can meet life’s challenges head on. He smiles a lot.” This disposition is at odds with the adversity with which he’s forced to contend, but he keeps smiling nevertheless, an attitude that allows him to “meet life’s challenges head on.”

However, not everyone in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is able to deal with racism by defying structures of black oppression with a sense of unshakeable optimism. Indeed, people like Seth often choose to ignore bigotry altogether in order to lead stable lives. Whereas Jeremy’s high-spirited willingness to reject racism interferes with his working life, Seth is more likely to acquiesce to the demands of white people for the sake of leading a prosperous life within the bounds of a racist society. When Jeremy explains that his white employers fired him because he refused to pay them fifty cents, Seth asks, “Boy, what kind of sense that make? What kind of sense it make to get fired from a job where you making eight dollars a week and all it cost you is fifty cents.” In response, Jeremy says, “It didn’t make no sense to me. I don’t make but eight dollars. Why I got to give him fifty cents of it?” What’s interesting about this exchange is that both men espouse different ideas about how to deal with the realities of life in racist, post-slavery America. A pragmatic man who prizes stability, Seth is so preoccupied with making a living and attaining economic security that he thinks only in financial terms, ignoring the injustice of Jeremy’s situation. This is why he asks “what kind of sense that make?”, since, speaking strictly in terms of numbers, it doesn’t make sense to sacrifice eight dollars for the sake of fifty cents. On the other hand, when Jeremy says, “It didn’t make no sense to me,” he reveals that he’s looking at the situation not in terms of money, but in terms of principle: for him, it doesn’t make sense to subject himself to unfair treatment just because he’s black. Unfortunately, this determination to not acquiesce to racism leaves him jobless. Nonetheless, he retains his positive attitude, an exuberance for life that doesn’t align with the harsh reality of the racist world in which he lives. In contrast, Seth’s tendency to view unequal treatment as a fact of life allows him to create a comparatively stable life for himself. As such, Wilson presents two ways of dealing with racism in post-slavery America: either a person stands up for himself and thus shoulders the unfortunate consequences, or he accepts the limitations placed upon him and does what he can to succeed within them. And although these ways of responding to racism differ, they both require a person to compromise, illustrating how nobody in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone exists uninfluenced by America’s history of racism.

Wilson further emphasizes the long-lasting effects of slavery by spotlighting Herald Loomis’s experience as a free black man captured by Joe Turner, a white man who rounded up groups of black men and forced them to work for him for seven years. Loomis’s time as one of these men completely derailed his life, splitting up his family and stripping him of his humanity. He explains to Seth and Bynum the circumstances of his capture, saying that he was snatched while preaching to a group of gamblers; “I stopped to preach to these fellows to see if maybe I could turn some of them from their sinning when Joe Turner, brother of the Governor of the great sovereign state of Tennessee, swooped down on us and grabbed everybody there.” The fact that Joe Turner is the Governor of Tennessee’s brother is significant because it illustrates the extent to which the American government still tacitly condones racial abuse. Joe Turner’s affiliation with the government suggests that although the laws have changed since the time of slavery, even the government has hardly shifted away, in practice, from the systematic dehumanization of black people. Indeed, the nation has a legacy of racism that isn’t easily dismantled, a legacy still bringing itself to bear on the characters of Wilson’s play.

It’s worth noting that even Selig—a supposedly friendly acquaintance of Seth and his boarders—operates within a tradition of prejudice and racism, since the only reason he’s a “people finder” in the first place is because his ancestors made their name bringing Africans to America, and later tracking down escaped slaves for plantation owners. By presenting the clearly observable ways this history of racism still manifests itself in 1911, Wilson emphasizes the fact that all his characters have habituated themselves to a racist world order. This is in keeping with the play’s name, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone—after all, Joe Turner is technically no longer in Loomis’s life, but his presence lingers because of the terrible aftereffects of his actions. In turn, Loomis’s inability to forget Joe Turner—along with Jeremy and Seth’s respective attempts to deal with racism—suggests that America can’t simply pick up and move on from its own racist history. This is further supported when Bynum sings an old blues song he learned in the South, the lyrics of which revolve around the phrase, “They tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone.” That this refrain has worked its way throughout the South is a testament to just how much the figure of Joe Turner has entered the national consciousness, suggesting that Herald Loomis isn’t the only person still living a life shaped by the horrors of racism and its turbulent related history.