In the February 27, 1958 edition of The St. Louis American, among a group photo of young girls known collectively as The Gems, Paulette Williams stood out from the crowd dressed in a dark party dress, while the others wore lighter hues, all pressed and dressed in white ankle socks and patent leather shoes.
It was a sign of what was to come from the girl who would become Ntozake Shange – poet, performer, author and a goddess of the theater who broke new ground for how the black woman’s experience was articulated in words and on stage.
Shange passed away Saturday, October 27 after health complications from several strokes. She was 70 years old.
“A heroine to writers of my generation, Ntozake represented creative experimentation, feminism empowerment, the right to stand up to sexism, but also something that black women weren’t allowed much of at the time – play,” said Lisa Jones, a writer.
“She was certainly the beginnings of what we know now as black girl magic – black women putting themselves at the center of the narrative and representing joy and style. She was all about black women and the black liberation struggle, but utterly a free spirit. Ntozake was walking, talking freedom.”
‘Buffered by the black community’
Born Paulette T. Williams in Trenton, New Jersey, she came with her family to St. Louis so that her father Paul Williams Sr., a surgeon, could further his training at Homer G. Phillips Hospital. Her mother, Eloise Williams, was an educator and psychiatric social worker.
Starting at the age of 8, Paulette spent several years of her childhood in St. Louis as a Gem, the daughter organization of The Links, Inc. She developed lifelong friendships lovingly cultivated well after her family moved back to their native New Jersey when she was in her early teens.
Though St. Louis was segregated, the Williams family enjoyed a comfortable existence at their home on Windermere Place.
“As children buffered by the black community, we were able to live full lives,” said Emily Jenkins, a friend and fellow Gem.
They took ballet lessons, played the piano, learned to knit and were taught public service. Their comfortable lives didn’t mean they were shielded from ever-present racism. It was more blatant in St. Louis during William’s early childhood, when the Civil Rights Movement was in its infancy, than on the East Coast.
The Gems remember not being permitted to take a dip at the pool at the Forest Park Highlands amusement park during scorching St. Louis summers. When they attended a popular movie theater downtown, they had to sit in the balcony, recalled Dianne Williams Powell, a Gem and next door neighbor. They also had to settle for takeout food at the popular Parkmoor restaurant as opposed to being seated inside.
When Paulette was transferred to Dewey Elementary School to participate in the school’s gifted program, the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling was still fresh. As the first black student many of her classmates had studied alongside, she experienced the acute pain and humiliation of racial harassment.
She retreated to the Cabanne Branch Library, read avidly and furthered a love of writing nurtured by her parents. Patrons of the arts and part of the black intelligentsia, her parents often carted Paulette and her younger sister Wanda (later known as playwright Ifa Bayeza) to poetry readings.
Her experiences in St. Louis would inspire Shange’s acclaimed novel “Betsey Brown.”
“She had a glint in her eye,” said Williams Powell. “Little did we know that a fire would emerge from within her,” Jenkins said, “and come out on the page in a way it never had before.”
The emancipation of Ntozake Shange
After graduating from Lawrence High School in New Jersey, Paulette Williams attended Barnard College in New York City. While at Barnard, she met future Grammy Award-winning writer, poet and playwright Thulani Davis (then known as Barbara Davis). The two would become longtime collaborators – and their creative connection would continue well after Williams graduated cum lade from Barnard with a bachelor’s degree in American Studies. She then earned a master’s degree in American Studies from the University of Southern California.
Her college years were marked by personal turmoil. As the identity of Paulette Williams came undone, according to Jenkins, “she traveled to Africa and emerged ‘Ntozake Shange.’” In the South African Xhosa language, Ntozake means “she who has her own things,” and Shange means one “who walks/lives with lions” in Zulu.
In addition to her new identity, Shange’s pain and subsequent liberation would set the stage for a creative masterpiece.
‘For Colored Girls Who …’
Shange returned to New York in 1975. She became a founding member of the Nuyorican Poets Café, where she first performed her self-described “choreopoem” “for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf.” That same year the work was adapted for the stage. The title alone is revolutionary. Colored girls aren’t allowed to think about taking their own lives when the load of the world becomes unlivable, let alone use art as a means to talk about it.
Through the perspectives of a handful of women of color, the work details the ecstasy and pathos of falling in love and the risk of losing oneself by forming attachments to others without a grounded critique. “for colored girls,” agilely conveys what it feels like to be mistreated, abused, and violated by those we trust and love.
“This was a time when men were allowed to do anything they wanted to do,” said Leslie Word Leath, another Gem and friend.
“And ‘Zake (as friends called Shange), through ‘for colored girls,’ said firmly, ‘You can’t do anything you want with me. This behavior is not acceptable.’ Black women needed to define who we were for ourselves – and determine our own rules.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage quoted a line from “for colored girls”: “I found god in myself, and I loved her, I loved her fiercely.”
“It was a glorious choreopoem that gave voice to a generation of young black women’s desires, joys and frustrations,” Nottage said. “It was the first time many of us saw our truth presented in full color on the American stage.”
“It was a game changer for black women to tell the truth, speak their truth and be recognized for their full humanity,” Jenkins said. “The Black Liberation Movement didn’t fully address who we were – neither did white women’s feminism.”
“‘for colored girls’ is more than a play,” said Brown University professor Kym Moore, who has directed the masterpiece numerous times. “It is a ritual of healing and transformation. Shange’s poetry is an incantation that is designed to affect the root of who we are as women and as human beings.”
The play became an instant classic in the canon of the black theater and is still performed by historic and contemporary black theater organizations alike.
More than 40 years after the Obie Award-winning play made its debut, “for colored girls” is scheduled to run at the Public Theater in New York soon in preparation for a Broadway revival. Leath said Shange, who was still performing despite being confined to a wheelchair at recent appearances, was “off the charts with excitement” that “for colored girls” would soon resurge on the New York theater scene. And The Gems were planning a group trip to New York to be by her side for the premiere.
“We’re still to going to go support our sister and celebrate her work,” Leath said. “She’ll be there in the rafters, with her red lipstick and beautiful earrings. The fact that she’s moved onto another realm will not change our love for her.”
Nor will it for her many fans – and the countless artists she inspired.
Nottage said, “Her passing leaves a huge hole in our theater community.”
Shange is survived by her daughter Savannah Shange, sister Ifa Bayeza, sister Bisa Williams, brother Paul T. Williams, Jr. and granddaughter Harriet Shange-Watkins. Final services are pending.
Kenya Vaughn contributed to this report.
