Image courtesy of University Archive at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries
Provincetown’s History Told Through Artifacts
by Steve Desroches
W.E.B. Du Bois and Eugene O’Neill were intellectual giants of their time. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois was an academic, writer, and a pan-Africanist civil rights activist who in 1891 was the first African-American to earn a doctoral degree from Harvard University. Born and raised in New York City, O’Neill was an up-and-coming playwright when he landed in Provincetown in 1916, a pivotal summer for the art colony and one where he became associated with the Provincetown Players, who would prove to be a revolutionary force in American theater.
Du Bois and O’Neil would meet in New York City in the 1920s as both were friends with actor Paul Robeson and the two became friends. Both attended the Civic Club Dinner in 1924, which united Black intellectuals with white liberals, an event that is often considered the birth of the Harlem Renaissance. Du Bois was very eager to meet O’Neill as the playwright achieved great success in 1920 with his play, The Emperor Jones, which is often recognized as the first major American theatrical production with a Black protagonist. The original production starred Charles Sidney Gilpin, who adjusted O’Neill’s original script, refusing to use the n-word. This, in part, began thoughtful discussion and debate about race in America between Du Bois and O’Neill as well as varied responses from Black intellectuals about a white playwright addressing racial issues. Du Bois would go on to offer support for O’Neill when All God’s Chillun Got Wings premiered in 1924, starring Robeson and causing controversy for featuring an interracial couple. The production at Greenwich Village’s Provincetown Playhouse received death and bomb threats as well as heavy criticism from some Black theater critics. Du Bois wrote a defense of the play in the program book.
Du Bois offered further support when Robeson starred in a 1925 revival of The Emperor Jones, a production that was meant to come to Provincetown, but scheduling would not allow for it, so Robeson came to town to perform a solo show of performance and music. Du Bois himself explored playwrighting and as this 1924 letter from O’Neill to DuBois suggest, the two collaborated. This letter was written from the old Peaked Hill Bars Lifeguard Station where O’Neill lived while in Provincetown. The station would fall into the ocean during a ferocious winter storm in 1931, but the letter survived history and is now part of the W.E.B. Du Bois Papers at the Special Collections and University Archive at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries, within the main library on campus named after Du Bois.
