Koritha Mitchell, author of Living with Lynching, gives two very different interviews.
“It’s our success that beckons the mob.” Professor Mitchell argues that there is a need to move beyond the classification of these plays as “protest art” and address them in the context of examining and being products of African American success in business and family life. Her interview from earlier this month with Mark Anthony Neal on Left of Black begins at 14:00.
On becoming a “Literary Historian.” In this interview with Writers Talk Mitchell recalls her discovery of a diary entry by Ida B. Wells, anti-lynching crusader, claiming that lynching might sometimes be justified. As an undergraduate, Mitchell was interested in what black women writers were saying between 1870 and 1920 and whether they came together with white women for political change. She thought lynching would have been the unifying force, but was proven wrong. But by the time she discovered that, she was hooked on the “lynching plays.”
Update: Read Koritha Mitchell’s blog post elaborating on a point made during her appearance on Left of Black,” Black Art (not equal to) Protest Art: A Contrarian View, Indeed.