Reading Order
Blues for Mister Charlie Reading Order
Blues for Mister Charlie (1964) by James Baldwin is his second play — written in response to the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago who was murdered in Mississippi for allegedly whistling at a white woman, and to the acquittal of his killers by an all-white jury. Baldwin writes in the play's dedication that 'it is dedicated to the memory of Medgar Evers, and his widow and his children, and to the memory of the dead children of Birmingham.' The play is set in the fictional Southern town of Plaguetown, and it follows the murder of Richard Henry, a young Black man who has returned home from New York, and the trial of Lyle Britten, the white store owner who killed him. Blues for Mister Charlie is Baldwin's angriest and most explicitly political play — the civil rights movement is at its center, and Baldwin does not offer the redemptive possibility or the complexity of The Amen Corner. The play was produced on Broadway in 1964 and had a successful run, though it divided critics: some found it too angry and too polemical; others found it the most important political play of its moment. It remains one of the essential dramatic texts of the civil rights era, and its willingness to give the white murderer a full dramatic portrait — while making clear what he is — is one of its formal achievements.
Where to start
The Amen Corner is the better place to start with Baldwin's drama — it is less overtly polemical. Blues for Mister Charlie is best read alongside the civil rights history it responds to. Any Vintage paperback.
Complete Blues for Mister Charlie Book List
- 1Buy
Blues for Mister Charlie
James Baldwin·1964·The play — the murder of Richard Henry in Plaguetown; the trial of Lyle Britten; written in response to the murder of Emmett Till; Baldwin's angriest and most explicitly political drama; the civil rights era play dedicated to Medgar Evers. - 2Buy
The Amen Corner
James Baldwin·1955·Baldwin's first play — the essential companion in his drama; the Harlem church world is the companion to the Southern civil rights setting; the two plays together represent the range of Baldwin's dramatic work. - 3Buy
Go Tell It on the Mountain
James Baldwin·1953·Baldwin's debut novel — the essential companion in his fiction; the Harlem church community is the world Richard Henry grew up in before coming south. - 4Buy
The Fire Next Time
James Baldwin·1963·Baldwin's most celebrated essay — the companion nonfiction from the same year; the prophetic anger of The Fire Next Time is the companion mode to the dramatic anger of Blues for Mister Charlie, written in the same period. - 5Buy
A Raisin in the Sun
Lorraine Hansberry·1959·Hansberry's landmark play — the companion in African American drama from the civil rights era; where Blues for Mister Charlie is about racial violence in the South, A Raisin in the Sun is about economic exclusion in the North; both are landmark works in the tradition of African American political drama. - 6Buy
The Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller·1949·Miller's landmark play — the companion in American drama about the tensions that destroy a man and a community; where Miller writes about the American Dream's cost for a white man, Baldwin writes about the cost of the American racial system for a Black man. - 7Buy
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Malcolm X·1965·Malcolm X's autobiography — the companion in African American writing from the same moment; the anger and the direct confrontation with white America that characterizes Blues for Mister Charlie is the companion to Malcolm X's rhetorical stance in his autobiography and speeches. - 8Buy
In the Heat of the Night
John Ball·1965·Ball's crime novel about a Black detective in the South — the companion in popular fiction about Southern racism and the American legal system in the civil rights era; where Baldwin's play is tragic and polemical, Ball's novel is genre fiction that reaches the same political conclusions through different means.
Blues for Mister Charlie — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Blues for Mister Charlie about?
Blues for Mister Charlie is set in the fictional Southern town of Plaguetown. Richard Henry, a young Black man who has been living in New York as a musician and drug addict, returns home to his father Meridian, a civil rights-era pastor. Richard is killed by Lyle Britten, a white store owner, after a confrontation. The play then follows the trial of Britten, in which the all-white jury acquits him despite clear evidence of his guilt. The play is structured in three acts with two settings: one for the Black community and one for the white community, alternating between them. Baldwin gives Lyle Britten a full dramatic portrait — his wife Jo, his community, his worldview — while making clear the horror of what he is and what he does.
How is Blues for Mister Charlie related to the murder of Emmett Till?
Emmett Till was a 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago who was murdered in Mississippi in 1955 after allegedly whistling at a white woman. His killers, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were acquitted by an all-white jury; they later confessed to the murder in a magazine interview, knowing they could not be tried again due to double jeopardy. The murder of Emmett Till galvanized the civil rights movement and became one of the defining images of American racial violence. Baldwin began writing Blues for Mister Charlie in response to Till's murder, and Richard Henry's story parallels Till's in important ways: a young Black man from the North who returns to the South, killed by a white man and acquitted by a white jury.
What is the significance of the title?
'Mister Charlie' is a term used in African American vernacular to refer to white men — the generic white authority figure, the white man with power. The title 'Blues for Mister Charlie' is ironic: Baldwin is not lamenting the white man, but naming the genre of the play (a blues, a form of music that transforms suffering into expression) while positioning it as a kind of elegy for or reckoning with whiteness and its costs. The blues is also the music of Richard Henry's world in New York — the secular music that connects his Black American culture to its roots — and the play's title connects the political subject (the murder of a Black man by a white man) to the cultural tradition of African American music.
Why is the play divided between Black and white communities?
Baldwin structures the play to give equal dramatic space to both the Black community (Meridian Henry's church, Richard's friends and family) and the white community (Lyle Britten's store, his wife Jo, his white neighbors). This structural choice is both fair and damning: by giving Lyle Britten a full dramatic life, Baldwin shows us who he is and how he understands himself, and makes it impossible to dismiss him as simply a monster. The white community's self-understanding — their sense that they are decent people, that Lyle was justified, that the trial was fair — is rendered with enough specificity to make its horror more apparent, not less. The division also mirrors the segregated world the play depicts.
What should I read after Blues for Mister Charlie?
After Blues for Mister Charlie, The Amen Corner (1955) is Baldwin's first play and a better entry point to his drama. Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) and Giovanni's Room (1956) are the essential companions in his fiction. For African American drama about racial violence, Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun and August Wilson's Fences are important companions. For the history that Blues for Mister Charlie responds to, The Autobiography of Medgar Evers and the Civil Rights Movement histories are important companions.
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