Celebrating August Wilson's Legacy in Smoketown

Abstract

In his opening address to attendees of the August Wilson Colloquium, Mark Whitaker—from his perspective as author of Smoketown—discusses the research he conducted and the subsequent incorporation of the topic of August Wilson into his book.  Beginning with the assertion that that Wilson’s family story "fits the larger pattern of migrants from the northern part of the Old South who arrived in Pittsburgh with a respect for literacy and religious discipline," Whitaker contrasts the history of  black Pittsburgh as reported in the pages of The Pittsburgh Courier with the metaphorical representations in Wilson's American Century Cycle.