When Ntozake Shange first introduced audiences to her seminal play, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf (1975), she did so in poetry performances in various California cafes. The genesis of her seven female characters, dressed in the colors of a rainbow, highlights how apt Shange’s term “choreopoem” is to describe her first Obie Award-winning play. An iconic expression of second-wave feminism and the emerging womanist sensibility of 1970s African American women writers, for colored girls distinguished Shange as an artist and has remained a play still resonant for young women of all races who struggle against misogyny or marginalization in the contemporary period.
Shange was born Paulette L. Williams in Trenton, New Jersey, the oldest of four children. Her father, Paul T. Williams, was an Air Force surgeon; her mother, Eloise Williams, a psychiatric social worker. Life was comfortably middle-class. At the family’s Sunday afternoon salons, the mother read Shakespeare, the father played the congas, and the children danced and played instruments. Guests included Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Chuck Berry, Josephine Baker, and W.E.B. Du Bois. Paulette was encouraged to read all forms of literature.
When Shange was eight, the family moved to St Louis, Missouri. She was one of the first African American children to attend recently desegregated German American schools, where she encountered racial assaults, both verbal and physical. She was no doubt relieved when the family returned to New Jersey five years later. Yet even at Morristown High School, where, as a teenager, she wrote poems for the school’s magazine, the stigma of being black and female persisted. She married at 18, entered Barnard College, but attempted suicide multiple times when the marriage collapsed and she encountered the racial, social, and cultural isolation of college. In spite of this, she graduated with honors with a degree in American Studies in 1970 and pursued graduate work at the University of Southern California, where she received a master’s degree in American Studies in 1973.
Surrounded by artists, writers, and musicians, Shange adopted her new name as a manifestation of her emergence from the dark days of her young adulthood. In 1971, two South African friends baptized her in the Pacific Ocean. She took the name Ntozake (a Xhosa word meaning “she who brings her own things”) and Shange (a Zulu term for “one who walks with lions”). She traveled the West Coast with performance groups, dancing and reciting poetry. She also taught Women’s Studies and humanities courses at Bay Area colleges, including Sonoma State College and the University of California Extension School. In 1975, she moved to New York, where for colored girls opened off Broadway. A critically acclaimed blur of poetry and dancing, music and light, the play won the Outer Critics Circle Award and the Audelco Award, in addition to an Obie. It was also the second play by an African American woman (after Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 A Raisin in the Sun) to make it to Broadway, where it had a successful run. It was spun off into a popular recording and a made-for-television movie, and nominated for a Tony, a Grammy, and an Emmy. for colored girls remains Shange’s most beloved and performed play. Most recently, it was adapted for the screen by media mogul Tyler Perry in 2010.
For over 35 years, Shange has published in multiple genres. In addition to plays, she has written novels (most notably Sassafras, Cypress & Indigo in 1982) and volumes of poetry, such as Nappy Edges (1978) and The Love Space Demands (1991). Her adaptation of Berthold Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children (1980) received an Obie Award in 1981, while Three Pieces (1981) won the Los Angeles Times Book Review Award in 1981. Most recently, she wrote and oversaw the production of her choreopoem Lavender Lizards and Lilac Landmines: Layla’s Dream (2003) while serving as a visiting artist at the University of Florida, Gainesville.
Clark, Patricia E. “Archiving Epistemologies and the Narrativity of Recipes in Ntozake Shange’s Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo.” Callaloo 30.1 (2007): 150–162.
Clarke, Cheryl. ‘After Mecca’: Women Poets and the Black Arts Movement. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2005. Ch. 4.
Fisher, James. “‘Boogie Woogie Landscapes’: The Dramatic/Poetic Collage of Ntozake Shange.” Contemporary African American Women Playwrights: A Casebook. Ed. Philip C. Kolin. New York: Routledge, 2007. 83–98.
Hamilton, Pamela. “Child’s Play: Ntozake Shange’s Audience of Colored Girls.” Reading Contemporary African American Drama: Fragments of History, Fragments of Self. Eds. Trudier Harris and Jennifer Larson. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 79–97.
Hubert, Susan J. “Singing a Black Girl’s Song in a Strange Land: for colored girls and the Perils of Canonicity.” Literary Griot 14.1–2 (2002): 94–102.
Mafe, Diana Adesola. “Black Women on Broadway: The Duality of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls.” American Drama 15.2 (2006): 30–47.
Smethurst, James Edward. “The Black Arts Movement.” A Companion to African American Literature. Ed. Gene Andrew Jarrett. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. 302–314.
Valdés, Vanessa K. “‘There is no incongruence here’: Hispanic Notes in the Works of Ntozake Shange.” CLA Journal 53.2 (2009): 131–144.
Washington, Teresa N. Our Mothers, Our Powers, Our Texts: Manifestations of Àjé in Africana Literature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005. Ch. 4.
lady in brown
dark phrases of womanhood of
never havin been a girl
half-notes scattered
without rhythm/no tune
distraught laughter fallin
over a black girl’s shoulder
it’s funny/it’s hysterical
the melody-less-ness of her dance
don’t tell nobody don’t tell a soul
she’s dancin on beer cans & shingles
this must be the spook house
another song with no singers
lyrics/no voices
& interrupted solos
unseen performances
are we ghouls?
children of horror?
the joke?
don’t tell nobody don’t tell a soul
are we animals? have we gone crazy?
i can’t hear anythin
but maddening screams
& the soft strains of death
& you promised me
you promised me …
somebody/anybody
sing a black girl’s song
bring her out
to know herself
to know you
but sing her rhythms
carin/struggle/hard times
sing her song of life
she’s been dead so long
closed in silence so long
she doesn’t know the sound
of her own voice
her infinite beauty
she’s half-notes scattered
without rhythm/no tune
sing her sighs
sing the song of her possibilities
sing a righteous gospel
let her be born
let her be born
& handled warmly.
lady in brown
i’m outside chicago
lady in yellow
i’m outside detroit
lady in purple
i’m outside houston
lady in red
i’m outside baltimore
lady in green
i’m outside san francisco
lady in blue
i’m outside manhattan
lady in orange
i’m outside st. louis
lady in brown
& this is for colored girls who have considered suicide
but moved to the ends of their own rainbows.
everyone
mama’s little baby likes shortnin, shortnin,
mama’s little baby likes shortnin bread
mama’s little baby likes shortnin, shortnin,
mama’s little baby likes shortnin bread
little sally walker, sittin in a saucer
rise, sally, rise, wipe your weepin eyes
an put your hands on your hips
an let your backbone slip
o, shake it to the east
o, shake it to the west
shake it to the one
that you like the best
lady in purple
you’re it
lady in yellow
it was graduation nite & i waz the only virgin in the crowd
bobby mills martin jerome & sammy yates eddie jones & randi
all cousins
all the prettiest niggers in this factory town
carried me out wit em
in a deep black buick
smellin of thunderbird & ladies in heat
we rambled from camden to mount holly
laughin at the afternoon’s speeches
& danglin our tassles from the rear view mirror
climbin different sorta project stairs
movin toward snappin beer cans &
GET IT GET IT THAT’S THE WAY TO DO IT MAMA
all mercer county graduated the same nite
cosmetology secretarial pre-college autoshop & business
all us movin from mama to what ever waz out there
that nite we raced a big ol truck from the barbeque stand
trying to tell him bout the party at jacqui’s
where folks graduated last year waz waitin to hit it wid us
i got drunk & cdnt figure out
whose hand waz on my thigh/but it didn’t matter
cuz these cousins martin eddie sammy jerome & bobby
waz my sweethearts alternately since the seventh grade
& everybody knew i always started cryin if somebody actually
tried to take advantage of me
at jacqui’s
ulinda mason was stickin her mouth all out
while we tumbled out the buick
eddie jones waz her lickin stick
but i knew how to dance
it got soo hot
vincent ramos puked all in the punch
& harly jumped all in tico’s face
cuz he was leavin for the navy in the mornin
hadda kick ass so we’d all remember how bad he waz
seems like sheila & marguerite waz fraid
to get their hair turnin back
so they laid up against the wall
lookin almost sexy
didnt wanna sweat
but me & my fellas we waz dancin
since 1963 i’d won all kinda contests
wid the cousins at the POLICE ATHLETIC LEAGUE DANCES
all mercer county knew
any kin to martin yates cd turn somersaults
fore smokey robinson cd get a woman excited
we danced doin nasty ol tricks
doin nasty ol tricks i’d been thinkin since may
cuz graduation nite had to be hot
& i waz the only virgin
so i hadda make like my hips waz inta some business
that way everybody thot whoever was gettin it
was a older man cdnt run the streets wit youngsters
martin slipped his leg round my thigh
the dells bumped “stay”
up & down – up & down the new carver homes
WE WAZ GROWN WE WAZ FINALLY GROWN
ulinda alla sudden went crazy
went over to eddie cursin & carryin on
tearin his skin wid her nails
the cousins tried to talk sense to her
tried to hold her arms
lissin bitch sammy went on
bobby whispered i shd go wit him
fore they go ta cuttin
fore the police arrived
we teetered silently thru the parkin lot
no un uhuh
we didn’t know nothin bout no party
bobby started lookin at me
yeah
he started looking at me real strange
like i waz a woman or somethin/
started talkin real soft
in the backseat of that ol buick
WOW
by daybreak
i just cdnt stop grinnin.
lady in blue
you gave it up in a buick?
lady in yellow
yeh, and honey, it was wonderful.
lady in green
we used to do it all up in the dark in the corners …
lady in blue
some niggah sweating all over you.
lady in red
it was good!
lady in blue
i never did like to grind.
lady in yellow
what other kind of dances are there?
lady in blue
mambo, bomba, merengue
when i waz sixteen i ran off to the south bronx
cuz i waz gonna meet up wit willie colon1
& dance all the time
mamba bomba merengue
lady in yellow
do you speak spanish?
lady in blue
olà
my papa thot he was puerto rican & we wda been cept we waz just reglar niggahs wit hints of spanish so off i made it to this 36 hour marathon dance
con salsa con ricardo
‘suggggggggggar’ ray on southern blvd
next door to this fotografi place
jammed wit burial weddin & communion relics
next door to la real ideal genuine spanish barber
up up up up up stairs & stairs & lotsa hallway
wit my colored new jersey self
didn’t know what anybody waz saying
cept if dancin waz proof of origin
i was jibarita herself that nite
& the next day
i kept smilin & right on steppin
if he cd lead i waz ready to dance
if he cdnt lead
i caught this attitude
i’d seen rosa do
& wd not be bothered
i waz twirlin hippin givin much quik feet
& bein a mute cute colored puerto rican
til saturday afternoon when the disc-jockey say
‘SORRY FOLKS WILLIE COLON AINT GONNA MAKE IT TODAY’
& alla my niggah temper came outta control
& i wdnt dance wit nobody
& i talked english loud
& i love you more than i waz mad
uh huh uh huh
more than more than
when i discovered archie shepp2 & subtle blues
doncha know i wore out the magic of juju
heroically resistin being possessed
oooooooooooooh the sounds
sneakin in under age to slug’s
to stare ata real ‘artiste’
& every word outta imamu’s mouth waz gospel
& if jesus cdnt play a horn like shepp
waznt no need for colored folks to bear no cross at all
& poem is my thank-you for music
& i love you more than poem
more than aureliano buendia loved macondo3
more than hector lavoe4 loved himself
more than the lady loved gardenias
more than celia5 loves cuba or graciela6 loves el son
more than the flamingos7 shoo-do-n-doo-wah love bein pretty
1975
From Ntozake Shange, for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf: a choreopoem. New York: Macmillan publishing company, 1977. Copyright © 1975, 1976, 1977, 2010 by Ntozake Shange. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Scribner Publishing Group and Russell &Volkening, Inc.
1 willie colon possible reference to William Anthony Colón (b. 1950), a Puerto Rican American activist and musician born in the South Bronx, New York City.
2 Archie Shepp (b. 1937), African American jazz saxophonist.
3 aureliano buendia loved macondo as depicted in Gabriel García Márquez’s 1967 novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was the second son of José Arcadio Buendía and the first to be born in Macondo, a town founded by José Arcadio.
4 hector lavoe born Héctor Juan Pérez Lavoe (1946–1993), a Puerto Rican singer.
5 celia born Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso de la Santísima Trinidad (1925–2003), a Cuban American salsa performer.
6 graciela Graciela Pérez-Gutiérrez (1915–2010), a Cuban American “Latin Jazz” singer.
7 the flamingos The Flamingos, an African American singing group most popular in the 1950s and renowned for its rhythm-and-blues, “doo-wop” vocal style. Original reads: flamingoes [ed.].