This play is not traditional in its plot. The story is not linear, we learn this as Black Woman With Fried Drumstick tells us when the play takes place, which is "Yesterday today next summer tomorro just uh moment uhgoh in 1317..." this is when the last black man in the whole world died. We are taken through a journey that is described by many as jazz and poetry within the confines of dramatic theater. Parks creates a journey through the hell that it is to be Black Man With Watermelon as he is killed over and over throughout the play, signifying how a man can be killed in more than just the physical, and for me how his death can become the beginning of many deaths throughout his bloodline.
The chorus of characters provide the look into how this Black Man has died, and why. The plot centers around how the white man before Columbus believed the world to be flat. But, When Columbus discovered it was round it put them in their place. They were not right, but they killed people who believed it was round. Thus, once they were proved wrong, instead of admitting it, they took their anger and perpetrated atrocities upon the Black Man in order to put them in their place. This takes the attention off of their being proven wrong and thrusts them back into power by taking lives.
In so doing, the men after Columbus have wiped out the written history of the Black Man. This is why Yes And Greens Black-Eyed Peas Cornbread continues to say to write down what has happened and place it under a rock, or a river bed and to carve it onto a stone. The truth must be recorded, because the way it hasn't been written down has wiped the history of the Black Man from the earth and hidden atrocities from the world while stealing a whole group of people's right to know where they have come from and what has happened to their people.
Parks utilizes the marriage of Black Man and Black Woman in stunning fashion. Their pleas to be missed, to be remembered penetrate the veins and bring such a fervent heartbreak to the story that stops the audience in their tracks. They, like any person on the planet, desire to love and be loved, to have a real connection, and to be remembered for who they are, and not just for the horror that has happened to them.
