Script Sample:
Rara Avis (Rare Bird)

From the vignette about Fannie Lou Hamer

PRISONER/ELLA BAKER*

(In a strong declarative voice, gesturing with her upraised right hand back and forth for emphasis.)  The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party is only beginning.  And it is beginning on the BASIS that it believes... (The hand becomes an index finger, pointing and moving back and forth in the same motion)  that a political party should be open to all the people who wish to subscribe to its principles.  That means... (She pulls her arm down slightly for a moment, waiting for the applause to die down)  It’s open to... (She resumes the index finger movement)  it’s open to even the son of the planter on who’s plantation you worked, if that son has reached the point that he’s willing to subscribe to your principles...  (Here the applause swells loudly, then fades out)

SISTER SISTER/FANNIE LOU HAMER

(Speaking normally)  This here is what they call Freedom Summer ‘64.  If the white folks don’t wanna let us have our rightful place in this here Democratic Party, we is just gonna have to take it.  Now we done elected our own Mississippi state delegates, 64 black and four white, and we is GOIN’ to Atlantic City to be seated as the true representatives of the State of Mississippi.  We been locked out at the state level, but now we is goin’ to take our fight to the nation.  They won’t let us down.

BLACKOUT

AT RISE, Atlantic City, New Jersey, August 1964.  A convention center, site of the 1964 Democratic national convention. Democratic Party campaign music plays.

A spot on the convention floor.  MAD CONVICT/SARGEANT AT ARMS stands, barring the way from

PRISONER/MRS. WHITSETT, who holds a large 4’ X 4’ white cardboard sign handing around her neck, which

hangs below her neck.  The sign reads MISSISSIPPI FREEDOM DEMOCRATIC PARTY in bold black letters.

MAD CONVICT/SERGEANT-AT-ARMS*

(Smiles apologetically, the very picture of decency as he explains politely to us)

I don’t have any contingency plans for this.  I just stand here, peacefully, trying to keep this aisle clear.

PRISONER/MRS. WHITSETT*

(Very angry, to us)  That’s not the way they do down in Mississippi.  When they’re at this convention, before the eyes of the world, they’re peaceful and lovin’.  And when they get back to Mississippi, it’s NIGGER you cain’t come in here, NIGGER you cain’t come in there, NIGGER you get out.  Here we are in the eyes of the world...seeing the same thing that happens down...WAY down in the deep south.  Mississippi.  The country refuses to demand that Mississippi give Negroes their rights.  Their privileges.  We didn’t ASK to be elected to anything, we didn’t ask for any PATRONAGE, all we ask for is to let us SIT.

BLACKOUT.  Music ceases.

SPOTLIGHT on MAD CONVICT/DELEGATE, stage right.

MAD CONVICT/NORTHERN DELEGATE

(To us)  Ladies and Gentleman of the Credentials Committee.  President Johnson is worried.  Yes, he knows he’s got the nomination all sewed up, but these Mississippi Freedom Democrats can cause us to get…sidetracked.  There are TV crews everywhere, stirring up the nation.  The regular southern democrats are jumpy as a schoolgirl with a piranha up her skirt.  If you don’t send these Freedom Democrats away empty handed, the regular democrats from Mississippi just might walk out of here.  And they might just take the whole South with ‘em.  That would be a political disaster.  Now you know how important it is to maintain party unity.  Any sign of weakness and the republicans will jump all over us.  So let’s do the right thing here.  The President must have the united support of the Democratic Party in order to win reelection in November.

BLACKOUT.

SPOTLIGHT on

LESBIAN AVENGER/MFDP LAWYER, center stage.

​

PRISONER/MFDP LAWYER*

(To us)  The honored delegate from Minnesota speaks of weakness.  But I speak of terror.  It is the very TERROR that these people are living through...that is the reason that Negroes aren’t VOTING, that they’re kept out of the Democratic Party by the TERROR of the regular party--and what I want the Credentials Committee to hear is the TERROR which the regular party uses on the people of Mississippi, which is what Reverend King was explaining, which is what Aaron Henry was explaining, and which is what the next witness will explain, Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer.

BLACKOUT.

SPOTLIGHT on SISTER SISTER/FANNIE LOU HAMER, stage left.

SISTER SISTER/FANNIE LOU HAMER*

(To us)  Mistuh Chairman, and to the Credentials Committee.  My name is Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer.  An’ I live at 626 East Lafayette Street, Ruleville, Mississippi.  Sunflower County, the home of Senator James O. Eastland, and Senator Skinner.  If the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated NOW, I question America.  Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off’o da hook because our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings in America.