The Colored Museum Summary

A Hurdle through Time
George C. Wolfe wrote the play The Colored Museum, which was a mocking assessment of African American identity and culture as it gives a feeling of discomfort and a delight to the audience. The play consists of eleven series of exhibits redefining the ideas of what it means to be black in a modern America. The audience appears to be traveling through time and viewing the lives of African American from slavery through the civil war to the war of today that had been existing from the start, racism.
The first scene “Git on Board” features Miss Pat, a much-hyped flight attendant on the Celebrity Slaveship who led the crew in the main cabin of what appears to be traveling in time on a slave ship. Miss Pat refers to the “fasten shackles” sign and to refrain from drumming as it might cause a rebellion. She encourages the audience to sing the spiritual songs to “abandon your God and worship a new one”. Since the African American was forced to abandon their culture the “African-American identity was established during the slavery period, producing a dynamic culture that has had and continues to have a profound impact on American culture as a whole, as well as that of the …show more content…
Aunt Ethel was considered a happy soul who proudly served mostly white families. Wolfe portrays her as obedient and servitude and was awarded with acceptance by the white culture for her “wisdom” and power as a female. Aunt Ethel’s power was crippling to black male, we see that today in the crippling among the black race, as Jeffrey T. Brown states in his article It's Not Race That Divides Us, But Culture, “For decades, a segment of the population that is black has drawn much attention, and critical scrutiny, for the culture that has become synonymous for many with what it is to be