Blues for Mister Charlie: A Play

By James Baldwin

An award-winning play from one of America’s most brilliant writers about a murder in a small Southern town, loosely based on the 1955 killing of Emmett Till. • "A play with fires of fury in its belly, tears of anguish in its eyes, a roar of protest in its throat." —The New York Times

James Baldwin turns a murder and its aftermath into an inquest in which even the most well-intentioned whites are implicated—and in which even a killer receives his share of compassion. 

In a small Southern town, a white man murders a black man, then throws his body in the weeds. With this act of violence, James Baldwin launches an unsparing and at times agonizing probe of the wounds of race.

For where once a white storekeeper could have shot a "boy" like Richard Henry with impunity, times have changed. And centuries of brutality and fear, patronage and contempt, are about to erupt in a moment of truth as devastating as a shotgun blast.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9780804149747

James Baldwin

James Baldwin (1841-1925) was an American textbook editor and author who had enormous influence in the publication of grammar and history textbooks at the beginning of the twentieth century. Born into a Quaker family in rural Indiana, he was largely self-educated. After publishing his first work, The Story of Siegfried (1882) he wrote more than fifty books, including Old Greek Stories (1895) and Fifty Famous Stories Retold (1895).

Reviews for Blues for Mister Charlie

[kurtwombat · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

James Baldwin's first play is as much a tender revalation of both sides of the racial divide as it is a scathing broadside against racism. Wonderful speeches never feel forced as each character is given a honest voice. A young black man murdered in a small southern town...everyone is complicit...even the victim. And everyone, in the end, is a victim. Baldwin as always expresses what it is to be human.

[whitewavedarling · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Inspired by the case of Emmett Till, this is a dramatic look at southern small-town race relations at the mid-century point. As a play, though, it doesn't capture the usual power of Baldwin's prose. I've no doubt that this would be a powerful work when set to the stage, but I don't think a reading can do it justice, particularly with the many characters involved. I might go back to this if I ever get together a class on works related to the Till case, which I've considered doing before, but for now, I'm not sure I'd recommend it on to other readers.