Historically blacks in America have always been faced with the difficult task of having to fight in order to be taken seriously in many different facets; the introduction of Reading Contemporary African American Drama takes an in-depth look at the evolution of African Americans in the arts and literature. Trudier Harris, the author of the introduction, explains the unfair characterization of African Americans in plays prior to playwrights using true historical content in their writing. Earlier portrayals of blacks were negative stereotypical roles such as “loud, outrageously dressed, comically violent and always humorous,” were hard to get away from and unfortunately these types of stereotypes still follow blacks today. It was not until
