Bookshelf

Wilson, August. The Ground on Which I Stand. Nick Hern Books, 2001.

First presented as an address to the Theatre Communications Group in 1996--expresses his debt to the Black Arts Movement as it emphasizes the need for more proactive engagement with inequality around race in contexts ranging from production funding to critical criteria.

August Wilson beckons his audience to remember the "hallowed" ground upon which he stands. He emphatically calls for the dignification of black culture/art, drawing our attention to the "self-defining ground of the slave quarters.... made fertile by the blood and bones of the men and women who can be described as warriors on the cultural battlefield that affirmed their self-worth."

Wilson, August. Jitney. New York: The Overlook Press, 1979.

As the eighth play in his Pittsburgh Cycle, August Wilson set the play in his home neighborhood of the Hill District, during a period of urban renewal. His piece puts a real face on gentrification and the people that experience it. There are five main characters, as well as secondary characters that come and go in the play, that experience this gentrification in their community as it threatens their livelihood: working at a jitney station. Readers that enjoy a heavy topic fused with historic information would love this play!

The heyday of Pittsburgh's Hill District lasted from the 1930's through the 1950's, and this eloquent documentary recaptures it all: the music clubs that attracted both black and white, the best Negro League baseball teams in America, the church picnics and family businesses that comprised the essence of life in this vibrant neighborhood.

Young, Damon. “Everybody Knew Teenie.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 17 Feb. 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/03/charles-teenie-harris-pittsburgh/617789/.

This article gives a brief overview of Charles “Teenie” Harris's life and how he was known to and by the Pittsburgh community. It features several of his photographs from his time as a photographer for The Pittsburgh Courier. The article also discusses the collection of his work at the Carnegie Museum of Art and how he captured at least 125,000 people over the course of 40 years in his hundreds of photos.