'Rhapsody in Black' shines light on racism

Actor and writer LeLand Gantt recounts a life colored by racism in his one-man play, Rhapsody in Black. /Image via dutchesstourism.com

The capital of New Hampshire is a perfect place to awaken white people to the reality of growing up black in America.

In a stunning and revealing sharing of his life's story this weekend at the Capitol Center for the Arts, New York-based actor and playwright LeLand Gantt performed his theatrical masterpiece on race in America, Rhapsody in Black. From grammar school in Pennsylvania to his adulthood in New York, Gantt relives seemingly endless episodes of racially fueled alienation, injustice and self doubt.

For me, the most gut-wrenching moments of the night came after Gantt's performance, when the artist sat down with his legs dangling over the edge of the stage and fielded more than a dozen questions from the audience about the play and the legacy of racism in the United States.

One question cut into my heart like butcher knife.

A white woman in the front row of the predominantly white audience from the overwhelmingly white state of New Hampshire asked Gantt for guidance in helping one of her elementary school students. The woman teaches at a school in the N.H. North Country, where community demographics are as white as the driven snow on Mount Washington. One of the teacher's students is The Only Black Girl in the school.

Classmates accepted the black girl when they were all little children, the teacher said. But that changed in fifth-grade, when the ignorant brand of racism that is prevalent across The Granite State had infected many minds of the elementary school's fifth-graders. At age 10, The Only Black Girl was learning harsh lessons about being black in America, including how the color of your skin can tattoo a bull's-eye in the center of your back, making you a target for cruelty and abuse.

I was in the black section of the audience, with my wife, who is half African-American, and members of a black family who were seated in front of us.

My wife was raised on Barn Door Gap Road in a little New Hampshire town. When she was growing up, Jen was The Only Black Girl in most of her elementary and high school classes.

As I watched Gantt offering the teacher some consolation and advice for helping her Only Black Girl, I could not bear to look at my Only Black Girl. I knew what I would see in Jen's face because the pain and anger associated with her childhood experiences were oozing out of every pore of her light brown skin.

I knew the emotions I would see in my wife's face because I could feel them piercing deep into my heart.

During her school-age years, Jen Cheney was The Only Black Girl in most of her classes, which is where she learned many emotionally brutal lessons about racism in America. /Family photo