That Recently Resurfaced James Baldwin Interview Gave Val Gray Ward a Chance to Reflect
When soon-to-be 89-year-old Val Gray Ward first saw a resurfaced television profile of James Baldwin, tears flooded her eyes. The clip brought her late friend back to her, decades after his death in 1987, and so much more—namely, the play they brought to life at New York's Lincoln Center in 1979.
In the spring of 1979, more than two dozen theater and dance troupes from across the country gathered at Lincoln Center to celebrate the power of Black performance. Ward, the pioneering founder of Chicago's Kuumba Theater, joined the festival with her Kuumba cast to perform The Amen Corner, Baldwin's semi-autobiographical study of religion, community, and splintered ideals, set in a divided Harlem church. Ward played Sister Margaret, the play's emotional center, a fiery and uncompromising minister whose standing in the church is threatened by a revelation about her domestic life. The resurfaced ABC profile features footage of rehearsals at Lincoln Center, with Baldwin seen beaming in the audience as he watches Ward and her co-stars singing gospel on stage. "I cried when I saw the ABC clip of him smiling," Ward told Esquire, "because that’s exactly the way he was."
When Ward founded the Kuumba Theater out of her home on Chicago's south side in 1968, times were lean—so lean that cars and homes had to be put up as collateral to keep the nonprofit theater going. Though the theater lacked funds in the beginning, it was rich in the power, genius, and support of Chicago's Black creatives: legends like Gwendolyn Brooks, Sammy Davis Jr., and Baldwin, who became beloved friends to Ward. Decades later, now with an Emmy and a Grammy under her belt, Ward spoke with Esquire by phone to remember her late friend James Baldwin, and the magic they made together at Lincoln Center.
Esquire: When did you meet James Baldwin? What was your first impression of him?
Val Gray Ward: I knew I loved him before I physically met him. We met at the home of Gwendolyn Brooks in 1965. She was one of my very best friends; I was her confidante and she was mine. When artists would come into town, we always convened at either her house or my house. Gwendolyn lived in a very small house, so everybody had to cram and push together. She would only invite a few people who were very close to her, because she was a very private person.
I thought of Baldwin as being like a prophet when I met him, because he said a lot of things that a lot of Black people felt. Those that didn’t feel, he spoke for them too, because all Black folks had encountered the sickness of racism in this country. He was never quiet. When his mouth was closed, nobody was quiet. You never felt like a stranger with him. You felt that you had known him through his writings. When I think about the people that were present in that room, poets and artists that today you’d look up to… you didn’t think about that, back then. They were just Black people, and anything Black people wanted to talk about, they would bring up. They would ask Baldwin, and they would ask Gwendolyn. Baldwin could answer you with his mouth and eyes, or just his eyes alone. Of course, that's what they say about my performances.
ESQ: How did the Kuumba Theater come to perform The Amen Corner at Lincoln Center? What was opening night like?
VGW: Hazel Bryant had a theater and dance festival at Lincoln Center. This festival consisted of Alvin Ailey and all sorts of incredible Black performers. We got fantastic reviews for the show. I have a picture I cherish of my mother and James Baldwin’s mother at the festival. When it was time for the performance, Baldwin brought every member of his family and all his friends. He brought practically everybody he knew. His sisters and I are still really good friends, to this day.
ESQ: The clip from ABC’s 20/20 depicts rehearsals at Lincoln Center, with Baldwin smiling in the audience. What were those rehearsals like? What was Baldwin like as a collaborator?
VGW: We didn’t have much time to rehearse. Baldwin often came to rehearsals on his own. I cried when I saw the ABC clip of him smiling, because that’s exactly the way he was. He himself started out as a minster at thirteen years old, so when we did The Amen Corner, we did it like he remembered it. He was hard to satisfy with his plays—not just The Amen Corner, but Blues For Mister Charlie, too.
In Chicago, I did a show for our PBS station called Precious Memories Strolling 47th Street. That won more awards for Channel 11 than it had ever won. After that, I wanted to do The Amen Corner for that station. I didn’t get to because Baldwin didn’t want anyone to produce his plays for television. The station couldn’t run a three-hour play, so they would have had to cut it down to size. Baldwin didn’t want anybody messing with it.
ESQ: How did your background in the Black church shape your performance of The Amen Corner?
VGW: We did a production where people would actually shout. I'm a preacher, and there are several sermons in Black art. I was born and reared in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. That's one of the oldest Black towns in America. When I was a kid, they taught oratoricals. I would win all of the local and Mississippi state oratoricals for girls. Morgan Freeman, who was from Greenwood, Mississippi, would win for the boys. Because it was a Black town with Black teachers, you’d learn Black history and Black poetry.
One of the main things we studied was The Creation, by James Weldon Johnson. He’s the one who wrote God’s Trombones. He said, "I would go into the country on Sundays, and my brother and I would listen to Black ministers in sanctified and real Baptist churches." I wanted to put that in perspective. I wanted to make sure not only to entertain, but to educate every time we entertained. You have to really pronounce the words. Instead of, "And God stepped out on space,” I'd say [speaking lyrically], "And God stepped out on space.” I tried to do it like Bessie Smith or Ma Rainey.
At Kuumba, we came up with twelve principles. We started out not by doing plays that were written, but by transforming poetry. I studied Black people: Black upper-class people, middle-class people, field hands, whoever. A lot of people would say to me, "Why don't you just step out of that Black stuff?" I said, "What are you asking me to do? I don't believe in suicide." I wanted to educate and entertain. That’s what I was able to do with Kuumba. Gwendolyn told Baldwin what my mission was, and when we met, we became very close friends.
ESQ: How did Kuumba Theater begin?
VGW: I gathered young people from the universities, kids from the projects, people from the community—all kinds of people. That's the way I founded Kuumba. At the time, there were several Black people in theater, but if they couldn't play a maid, they couldn’t be cast, other than helping put the props on stage. They couldn’t even be stage managers. In the beginning, I got all of these people together. They would come to workshop, but we didn’t do plays at the beginning. We would put together a place to perform, where we would talk about what was happening in our communities and what was happening to young people at the colleges. That would be the production. You wouldn't know who was sitting beside me.
Then we went from my house to the South Side Art Center, which had been opened by Eleanor Roosevelt. Gwendolyn Brooks, Margaret Burroughs, Elizabeth Catlett, Richard Wright—every one of them learned to write and paint there. That was Kuumba's first home. Our first play was by Ted Shine, who was at the University of Louisiana at Southern University. It was called Contribution. We also put poetry on stage. We went to the taverns and performed on street corners. We would take the art to the people. Eventually it took us to places like Lincoln Center, and even all the way to Japan.
ESQ: Lincoln Center wasn’t the only time you performed The Amen Corner. What were other productions like?
VGW: I played Sister Margaret in Chicago. I opened up a place on Michigan Avenue downtown that had been closed for years, called the World Playhouse. It had been closed for decades, but I wanted to take The Amen Corner there. At the time, some of my people were in the union and some weren’t. People in New York told me I couldn’t put on the play without paying fees. At the time, Baldwin was still living in France. I called him, because he had been a speaker for Kuumba’s anniversary. He said, “Val, didn’t I tell you that you could do The Amen Corner, and you don’t have to pay nobody?” Opening night came. They were telling me that the police would arrive to arrest me and any member of the cast that went on stage. The union people stayed backstage. But the police didn’t stop us. After that, Baldwin flew out and saw a production.
ESQ: He sounds like a wonderful friend.
VGW: He was really a dear friend. One time, I was with him when he was trying to write about those kids that went missing in Atlanta [Baldwin's essay would become The Evidence of Things Not Seen]. He was in so much pain and agony. If somebody would tell a story, or if he would tell a story, his eyes would just fill up, and the rest of us would cry. When he told a story, it was like reading one of his books. You’d be on the edge of your seat listening to him.
But he was also fun. It’s true what people say about his drinking; he would be drinking and smoking. He didn't smoke as much as Sammy Davis Jr. smoked. Sammy smoked until his fingers turned brown and you could smell them. Baldwin was sincere and hurt about the way America was, and he would take in the hurt and happiness of people around him. If the times were good and fun, he was funny. We laughed and we cried together. I loved him and he loved me.
I'm still close to Baldwin's family. He was probably one of the best people I could know, and who could know me. I could tell him anything. When he came to Kuumba, I couldn’t pay him an honorary. I couldn't pay him for flying on the plane from France. He insisted on coming on his own and paying for his hotel, his flight—everything. The agents in New York would call me and say, "Mr. Baldwin won’t be there; he’s still in France.” Then he would come. He came to be a speaker at our anniversary, saying, "What did I tell you? Didn’t I tell you I'll be there?” I said, "Yes." He said, “And here I am.”
ESQ: What did you love so much about The Amen Corner that inspired you to perform it around the world, and push to air it on television? What did you love about playing Sister Margaret?
VGW: I can certainly play the Black preacher. But what Sister Margaret's life was, the same was true of so many women in the Black community. In these churches, you have these little groups. You have gossip and troublemakers. In the play, Baldwin showed the hypocrisy of some Black churches and what that meant. It might've been one of the reasons he left the church. The Amen Corner might've been his life, but it's also the lives of so many of the little storefront churches, as well as the big churches.
Luke, Sister Margaret’s husband, was a jazz musician, so Sister Margaret found the ministry as a hiding place. James Baldwin left the ministry. He and I had this discussion. I think the black church comes out of the African tradition. Now, a lot of people wouldn't have acknowledged that, but some churches, like the church Baldwin was talking about in Harlem, might've had drums. The drums talk to us. They move us today, yesterday, tomorrow. That’s part of African-ness, if there is such a word. It's almost like blues. People will say, "I don't like blues." But if you look under the table, they'll be tapping their toes. The blues can take them to that place. The church served as that, because on Sundays, you could go to church, whether you'd worked in the fields or the factory or a restaurant. Church was your psychiatrist, your relief, your everything. It could release you from how you were treated by your neighbors, and from the racism and sickness of this country. That’s what Sister Margaret loved to do.
Luke came home to die. She not only forgave him, but David became his father's child, because he went into jazz. James Baldwin just loved the young man who played David in The Amen Corner. He played the part for us in Chicago, New York, San Antonio, Connecticut… we played it for six to eight weeks here and there, and I always played Sister Margaret. I loved that part so much. I thought it was written for me.
ESQ: What did you feel when you saw the 20/20 clip, featuring yourself on stage? Did it take you back in time to playing Sister Margaret?
VGW: I saw James Baldwin smiling. He had smiled at this performance. He had told me, "It was a great performance." But when I saw him smiling, I can't tell you what that did to me. With James Baldwin, all you have to do to know him is read him, but I loved him. He loved me. And he loved Black people.
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