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The Ground on Which I Stand
Book by Wilson, August
48 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2000
1 person is currently reading
172 people want to read
About the author
August Wilson
67 books588 followersAmerican playwright August Wilson won a Pulitzer Prize for
Fences
in 1985 and for
The Piano Lesson
in 1987.
His literary legacy embraces the ten series and received twice for drama for The Pittsburgh Cycle . Each depicted the comic and tragic aspects of the African-American experience, set in different decade of the 20th century.
Daisy Wilson, an African American cleaning woman from North Carolina, in the hill district of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, bore Frederick August Kittel, Junior, the fourth of six children, to Frederick August Kittel, Senior, a German immigrant baker. From North Carolina, maternal grandmother of Wilson earlier sought a better life and walked to Pennsylvania. After his fifth year, his mother raised the children alone in a two-room apartment above a grocery store at 1727 Bedford Avenue.
After death of Frederick August Kittel, Senior, in 1965, his son changed his name to August Wilson to honor his mother.
In 1968, Wilson co-founded the black horizon theater in the hill district of Pittsburgh alongside Rob Penny, his friend. People first performed his Recycling for audiences in small theaters and public housing community centers. Among these early efforts, he revised Jitney more than two decades later as part of his ten-cycle on 20th-century Pittsburgh.
Wilson married three times. His first marriage to Brenda Burton lasted from 1969 to 1972. She bore him Sakina Ansari, a daughter, in 1970.
Vernell Lillie founded of the Kuntu repertory theatre at the University of Pittsburgh in 1974 and, two years later, directed The Homecoming of Wilson in 1976.
Wilson also co-founded the workshop of Kuntu to bring African-Americans together and to assist them in publication and production. Both organizations still act.
Claude Purdy, friend and director, suggested to Wilson to move to Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1978 and helped him secure a job with educational scripts for the science museum. In 1980, he received a fellowship for the center in Minneapolis. Wilson long associated with the penumbra theatre company, which gave the premieres, of Saint Paul.
In 1981, he married to Judy Oliver, a social worker, and they divorced in 1990.
Wilson received many honorary degrees, including an honorary doctor of humanities from the University of Pittsburgh, where he served as a member of the board of trustees from 1992 until 1995.
Wilson got a best known Tony award and the New York circle of drama critics; he authored Ma Rainey's Black Bottom , and Joe Turner's Come and Gone .
In 1994, Wilson left Saint Paul and developed a relationship with Seattle repertory theatre. Ultimately, only Seattle repertory theater in the country produced all works in his ten-cycle and his one-man show How I Learned What I Learned .
Constanza Romero, his costume designer and third wife from 1994, bore Azula Carmen, his second daughter.
In 2005, August Wilson received the Anisfield-Wolf lifetime achievement award.
Wilson reported diagnosis with liver cancer in June 2005 with three to five months to live. He passed away at Swedish medical center in Seattle, and people interred his body at Greenwood cemetery, Pittsburgh on 8 October 2005.
His literary legacy embraces the ten series and received twice for drama for The Pittsburgh Cycle . Each depicted the comic and tragic aspects of the African-American experience, set in different decade of the 20th century.
Daisy Wilson, an African American cleaning woman from North Carolina, in the hill district of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, bore Frederick August Kittel, Junior, the fourth of six children, to Frederick August Kittel, Senior, a German immigrant baker. From North Carolina, maternal grandmother of Wilson earlier sought a better life and walked to Pennsylvania. After his fifth year, his mother raised the children alone in a two-room apartment above a grocery store at 1727 Bedford Avenue.
After death of Frederick August Kittel, Senior, in 1965, his son changed his name to August Wilson to honor his mother.
In 1968, Wilson co-founded the black horizon theater in the hill district of Pittsburgh alongside Rob Penny, his friend. People first performed his Recycling for audiences in small theaters and public housing community centers. Among these early efforts, he revised Jitney more than two decades later as part of his ten-cycle on 20th-century Pittsburgh.
Wilson married three times. His first marriage to Brenda Burton lasted from 1969 to 1972. She bore him Sakina Ansari, a daughter, in 1970.
Vernell Lillie founded of the Kuntu repertory theatre at the University of Pittsburgh in 1974 and, two years later, directed The Homecoming of Wilson in 1976.
Wilson also co-founded the workshop of Kuntu to bring African-Americans together and to assist them in publication and production. Both organizations still act.
Claude Purdy, friend and director, suggested to Wilson to move to Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1978 and helped him secure a job with educational scripts for the science museum. In 1980, he received a fellowship for the center in Minneapolis. Wilson long associated with the penumbra theatre company, which gave the premieres, of Saint Paul.
In 1981, he married to Judy Oliver, a social worker, and they divorced in 1990.
Wilson received many honorary degrees, including an honorary doctor of humanities from the University of Pittsburgh, where he served as a member of the board of trustees from 1992 until 1995.
Wilson got a best known Tony award and the New York circle of drama critics; he authored Ma Rainey's Black Bottom , and Joe Turner's Come and Gone .
In 1994, Wilson left Saint Paul and developed a relationship with Seattle repertory theatre. Ultimately, only Seattle repertory theater in the country produced all works in his ten-cycle and his one-man show How I Learned What I Learned .
Constanza Romero, his costume designer and third wife from 1994, bore Azula Carmen, his second daughter.
In 2005, August Wilson received the Anisfield-Wolf lifetime achievement award.
Wilson reported diagnosis with liver cancer in June 2005 with three to five months to live. He passed away at Swedish medical center in Seattle, and people interred his body at Greenwood cemetery, Pittsburgh on 8 October 2005.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 23, 2024
”In one guise, the ground I stand on has been pioneered by the Greek dramatists — by Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles — by William Shakespeare, by Shaw, Ibsen, and Chekhov, Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams. In another guise, the ground that I stand on has been pioneered by my grandfather, by Nat Turner, by Denmark Vesey, by Martin Delany, Marcus Garvey, and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.”
”It is difficult to disassociate my concerns with theater from the concerns of my life as a black man. I have strived to live it all seamless — art and life together, inseparable and indistinguishable.”
August Wilson’s keynote address at the Theater Communications Group’s 1996 conference remains a ringing challenge these three decades later. He spoke with a prophetic voice — bold and fierce, wielding his magnificent prose as a cleaving weapon. He affirmed his influence from the Black Power movement, and proudly claimed it as a root of his art:
”I stand myself and my art squarely on the self-defining ground of the slave quarters, and find the ground to be hallowed and 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 firmly rejected what he saw as continued cultural imperialism in the theater. He adamantly rejected the idea of colorblind casting as simply another way of affirming the dominance of white culture in the arts — rejected the idea of the melting pot (in which, by default, European cultural traditions would always dominate) in favor of recognizing the existence and importance of black culture, and funding theaters and directors to tell those stories.
As a gesture of benevolence, many whites (like the proponents of colorblind casting) say, “Oh, I don’t see color.” We want you to see us. We are black and beautiful. We have an honorable history in the world of men. We are not ashamed, and we do not need you to be ashamed for us. Nor do we need the recognition of our blackness to be couched in abstract phrases like “artist of color.” We reject that. We are unique, and we are specific.
Wilson called not for the passive acceptance of blacks within a perpetually European culture base art scene, but for the inclusion, complete with all due support and funding, of a robust art and theater scene telling the stories and reflecting the unique culture of black Americans. He also called for the rejection of W.E.B. DuBois’s concept of “the talented tenth” as a divisive and limiting idea, embracing rather that the entirety of the black community must be recognized for its talent and potential, regardless of economic or social position.
In this speech, Wilson joined the ranks of other great prophetic voices that proceeded him, like James Baldwin. He spoke hard truths with authority in a way that demanded to be heard. You would do well to read and listen.
You can read Wilson’s speech on line for free here: https://www.americantheatre.org/2016/...
”It is difficult to disassociate my concerns with theater from the concerns of my life as a black man. I have strived to live it all seamless — art and life together, inseparable and indistinguishable.”
August Wilson’s keynote address at the Theater Communications Group’s 1996 conference remains a ringing challenge these three decades later. He spoke with a prophetic voice — bold and fierce, wielding his magnificent prose as a cleaving weapon. He affirmed his influence from the Black Power movement, and proudly claimed it as a root of his art:
”I stand myself and my art squarely on the self-defining ground of the slave quarters, and find the ground to be hallowed and 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 firmly rejected what he saw as continued cultural imperialism in the theater. He adamantly rejected the idea of colorblind casting as simply another way of affirming the dominance of white culture in the arts — rejected the idea of the melting pot (in which, by default, European cultural traditions would always dominate) in favor of recognizing the existence and importance of black culture, and funding theaters and directors to tell those stories.
As a gesture of benevolence, many whites (like the proponents of colorblind casting) say, “Oh, I don’t see color.” We want you to see us. We are black and beautiful. We have an honorable history in the world of men. We are not ashamed, and we do not need you to be ashamed for us. Nor do we need the recognition of our blackness to be couched in abstract phrases like “artist of color.” We reject that. We are unique, and we are specific.
Wilson called not for the passive acceptance of blacks within a perpetually European culture base art scene, but for the inclusion, complete with all due support and funding, of a robust art and theater scene telling the stories and reflecting the unique culture of black Americans. He also called for the rejection of W.E.B. DuBois’s concept of “the talented tenth” as a divisive and limiting idea, embracing rather that the entirety of the black community must be recognized for its talent and potential, regardless of economic or social position.
In this speech, Wilson joined the ranks of other great prophetic voices that proceeded him, like James Baldwin. He spoke hard truths with authority in a way that demanded to be heard. You would do well to read and listen.
You can read Wilson’s speech on line for free here: https://www.americantheatre.org/2016/...
March 29, 2019
Reading Wilson's testimony has changed everything. 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." If this isn't a piece that you've come across quite yet, I think it may just be the next "required reading" on your list.
February 19, 2021
August Wilson covers a lot of ground in a short work - cultural imperialism, the two traditions of Black Art, and 'colorblind' casting
I'm glad that I finally read this.
I'm glad that I finally read this.
November 19, 2024
This speech marks an important moment in American theatre history, and so it's an important text to read and consider, but the more one ponders Wilson's arguments, the more one notices how contradictory his ideas are. This is a document of feelings and ideas by the United States' most important playwright (in 1996 when this speech was given), and it's interesting for this reason. But it is short on both analysis and practicality, and it's a frustrating text.
I find it very odd that the main takeaway from this speech was a debate between the critic Robert Brustein (who made numerous inflammatory racist statements prior to this speech) and Wilson about the practice of color-blind casting. Wilson's point of view about this is provocative, certainly,
but it's hardly the most interesting thing he says in The Ground on Which I Stand.
I'm personally partial to Henry Louis Gates's response to the speech, his essay "The Chitlin Circuit", which was published in Harry Elam and David Krasner's African American Performance and Theater History: a Critical Reader, and I'd recommend reading this book and Gates's analysis together.
I find it very odd that the main takeaway from this speech was a debate between the critic Robert Brustein (who made numerous inflammatory racist statements prior to this speech) and Wilson about the practice of color-blind casting. Wilson's point of view about this is provocative, certainly,
but it's hardly the most interesting thing he says in The Ground on Which I Stand.
I'm personally partial to Henry Louis Gates's response to the speech, his essay "The Chitlin Circuit", which was published in Harry Elam and David Krasner's African American Performance and Theater History: a Critical Reader, and I'd recommend reading this book and Gates's analysis together.
September 14, 2016
This tiny volume--really an essay, first presented as an address to the Theatre Communications Group in 1996--expresses his aesthetic 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. Assertive and provocative, even in its slimness.
March 31, 2026
“That is simply that I believe that race matters. That is the largest, most identifiable, and most important part of our personality.”
“The term black or African American not only denotes race; it denotes condition and carries with it the vestige of slavery and the social segregation and abuse of opportunity so vivid in our memory.”
“I stand myself and my art squarely on the self-defining ground of the slave quarters and find the ground to be hallowed and 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. As there is no idea that cannot be contained by black life, these men and women found themselves to be sufficient and secure in their art and their instructions."
“Quite possibly this tremendous outpouring of works by minority artists may lead to a raising of standards and a raising of the levels of excellence, but Mr. [Robert] Brustein cannot allow that possibility... We are capable of work of the highest order ... we can answer to the high standards of world-class art. Anyone who doubts our capabilities at this last stage is being intellectually dishonest.”
“We can meet on the common ground of theater as a field of work and endeavor. But we cannot meet on the common ground of experience. Where is the common ground in the horrifics of lynching? Where is the common ground in the maim of a policeman's bullet? Where is the common ground in the hull of a slave ship and the deck of a slave ship with its refreshments of air and expanse? We will not be denied our history. We have voice, and we have temper. We are too long along this road from the loss of our political will, we are too far along the road of reassembling ourselves, too far along the road to regaining spiritual health than to allow such transgression of our history to go unchallenged.”
"Colorblind casting is an aberrant idea that has never had any validity other than as a tool of the Cultural Imperialist who views their American Culture, rooted in the icons of European Culture, as beyond reproach in its perfection. It is inconceivable to them that life could be lived and even enriched without knowing Shakespeare or Mozart. Their gods, their manners, their being is the only true and correct representation of humankind. They refuse to recognize black conduct and manners as part of a system that is fueled by its own philosophy, mythology, history, creative motif, social organization and ethos. The idea that blacks have their own way of responding to the world, their own values, style, linguistics, their own religion, and aesthetics is unacceptable to them... To cast us in the role of mimics is to deny us our own competence."
"We want you to see us. We are black and beautiful. We are not patrons of the linguist environment that has us as "unqualified, and violators of public regulations." We are not a menace to society. We are not ashamed. We have an honorable history in the world of men. We come from a long line of honorable people with complex codes of ethics and social discourse who devised myths and systems of cosmology and systems of economics, who were themselves part of a long social and political history. We are not ashamed and do not need you to be ashamed for us. Nor do we need the recognition of our blackness to be couched in abstract phrases like "artist of color." Who are you talking about? A Japanese artist? An Eskimo? A Filipino? A Mexican? A Cambodian? A Nigerian? An African American? Are we to suppose that if you put all of them on one side of the scale and one white person on the other side . . . that it would balance out? That whites carry that much spiritual weight? That one white person balances out the rest of humanity lumped together as nondescript "People of Color"? We reject that. We are unique, and we are specific."
"To pursue our cultural expression does not separate us. We are not separatists as Mr. Brustein asserts. We are Americans trying to fulfill our talents."
“The term black or African American not only denotes race; it denotes condition and carries with it the vestige of slavery and the social segregation and abuse of opportunity so vivid in our memory.”
“I stand myself and my art squarely on the self-defining ground of the slave quarters and find the ground to be hallowed and 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. As there is no idea that cannot be contained by black life, these men and women found themselves to be sufficient and secure in their art and their instructions."
“Quite possibly this tremendous outpouring of works by minority artists may lead to a raising of standards and a raising of the levels of excellence, but Mr. [Robert] Brustein cannot allow that possibility... We are capable of work of the highest order ... we can answer to the high standards of world-class art. Anyone who doubts our capabilities at this last stage is being intellectually dishonest.”
“We can meet on the common ground of theater as a field of work and endeavor. But we cannot meet on the common ground of experience. Where is the common ground in the horrifics of lynching? Where is the common ground in the maim of a policeman's bullet? Where is the common ground in the hull of a slave ship and the deck of a slave ship with its refreshments of air and expanse? We will not be denied our history. We have voice, and we have temper. We are too long along this road from the loss of our political will, we are too far along the road of reassembling ourselves, too far along the road to regaining spiritual health than to allow such transgression of our history to go unchallenged.”
"Colorblind casting is an aberrant idea that has never had any validity other than as a tool of the Cultural Imperialist who views their American Culture, rooted in the icons of European Culture, as beyond reproach in its perfection. It is inconceivable to them that life could be lived and even enriched without knowing Shakespeare or Mozart. Their gods, their manners, their being is the only true and correct representation of humankind. They refuse to recognize black conduct and manners as part of a system that is fueled by its own philosophy, mythology, history, creative motif, social organization and ethos. The idea that blacks have their own way of responding to the world, their own values, style, linguistics, their own religion, and aesthetics is unacceptable to them... To cast us in the role of mimics is to deny us our own competence."
"We want you to see us. We are black and beautiful. We are not patrons of the linguist environment that has us as "unqualified, and violators of public regulations." We are not a menace to society. We are not ashamed. We have an honorable history in the world of men. We come from a long line of honorable people with complex codes of ethics and social discourse who devised myths and systems of cosmology and systems of economics, who were themselves part of a long social and political history. We are not ashamed and do not need you to be ashamed for us. Nor do we need the recognition of our blackness to be couched in abstract phrases like "artist of color." Who are you talking about? A Japanese artist? An Eskimo? A Filipino? A Mexican? A Cambodian? A Nigerian? An African American? Are we to suppose that if you put all of them on one side of the scale and one white person on the other side . . . that it would balance out? That whites carry that much spiritual weight? That one white person balances out the rest of humanity lumped together as nondescript "People of Color"? We reject that. We are unique, and we are specific."
"To pursue our cultural expression does not separate us. We are not separatists as Mr. Brustein asserts. We are Americans trying to fulfill our talents."
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December 30, 2025heartbreaking that august wilson’s assessments on the lack of funding / theft of black arts and programming in 1996 are still too apt almost 30 years later. i was hungry for specific examples on how he imagines the theatre world will change w/ more involvement from black playwrights and only felt satisfied by his call to abolish subscription audiences (i’d never heard of the term). overall the intro and wilson’s race-first (gender where?) analysis left a sour taste in my moment and im now wondering about his work and value of black woman playwrights and radicals (other than sonia sanchez). i mostly read plays this year and idk why lol, but they were all by african women so this was a tone shift and interesting way to end the year for sure.
January 29, 2023
Important. Read it!
March 1, 2026
Lots of strong stances, but I disagree with his core argument against colorblind casting. In my opinion, this would deny opportunities to talented black actors, as well as other artists of color.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews