And Galileo Saw A Pendulum,
While Sitting In A Church
A Freedom Play Piece
by Sara Kumar
about life
when the Civil War was coming to an end,
in Tennessee,
and Washington City,
and how a scientific idea
can be needed
to help a friend be free.
Let me pray for peace, said the playwright.
"The Greenville Herald"
Greeneville, Tennessee
Thu, Mar. 17, 1881, Page 3
​Dolly Johnson opened a bakery,
on St. Patrick's Day in 1881.
Now, dat be a guud headline,
said Henry Harding, from Tennessee
Rain yesterday.
Moonlight nights.
Spring not far off.
All sorts of weather.
This is St. Patrick's day.
Gardening has commenced.
Maryville is to have a bank.
Now is the time to advertise.
Yield not to discouragements.
Mr. John Brabson is at home
on a visit.
Our farmers are busy getting
ready to plant.
Try the HERALD six months-
only fifty cents.
Attend carefully to the details
of your business.
Ask your neighbor to subscribe
for the HERALD.
Snow was visible on the moun-
tains last Sunday.
Paints, Oils, Varnish and Brush-
es at Isaac O. Harrell's.
Country produce taken on sub-
scription for the HERALD.
Dolly Johnson opened a bakery, on St. Patrick's Day in 1881.
We can think about genre, when writing a play.
If thinking about historical imagination drama,
I like to read for awhile,
letters, stories, biography online and in books,
newspapers, interviews, speeches
It's not needed to think about compression,
but there is for me, an expanse of story.
And after reading for awhile, an original approach
to the storytelling begins to happen.
And I said, for example, the meeting of Frederick Douglass,
and the Black American delegation with President Andrew Johnson,
about voting rights, happened in real life,
in February of 1866, at the White House.
but my play ends before that, in 1865,
so how can I talk about this important meeting?
How about an epilogue? And I'm still thinking about this, now
The play opens in August of 1863, and ends in May of 1865
By August of 1863, the battles in Vicksburg, Mississippi had ended,
the fighting at Gettysburg also had ended,
and some people thought the Union Army would win the war.
President Abraham Lincoln would give his speech at Gettysburg,
in November of 1863, that same year,
nearly a year after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation,
and some people, including Andrew Johnson and Frederick Douglass,
were thinking about how to proceed, in their political and family lives,
especially with regard to a new constitutional amendment,
that would abolish slavery in the United States.
So now, we can come to the play text with some background, I hope,
and we can think also about May 1, 1865, Decoration Day,
when free Black Americans in Charleston, South Carolina,
remembered the lives of veterans.
The study of life during the Civil War has been somber for me,
and many Black Americans lost their lives in battle also,
so I pray now, I can look back with sober eyes and with renewed hope.
With hope and gratitude, and thoughts of abiding peace,
Sara Kumar
For high school, college,
graduate school,
and adult leisure reading.
Slideshows can be read
to elementary grade students, with teachers
and parents.
Our play begins,
click on button,
for play piece text
William Johnson was the youngest
of Dolly’s three children, and he
loved to dress in beautiful black
coats, like his uncle, Sam
Johnson did. William Johnson was
born in February of 1858.
Play text
is for eleventh grade reading, to accompany,
American Literature
and United States History, and also,
undergraduate
studies in Drama
and Literature.
Image Courtesy of Library of Congress
​
Pictured left is the same man,
William, who was presented with
a silver-handle cane, when he
visited then President Franklin D.
Roosevelt in Washington, D.C., in
the year 1937.
​
The Emancipation
Proclamation was signed by
then President Abraham Lincoln
on January 1, 1863.
NOT EVERY STATE
IN THE SOUTH
WAS INCLUDED.
​
TENNESSEE WAS NOT INCLUDED,
SO THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT, ENDING SLAVERY IN ALL THE UNITED STATES WAS NEEDED.
Military Governor Andrew Johnson
gave a speech on August 22, 1863,
to Tennesseans gathered in the city of Franklin,
​
in which he tried to rationalize the need for
​
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation,
​
in a way that would appeal to racial prejudice.
​
​
Johnson began a speaking tour in Indianapolis,
​
Cincinnati, Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore
​
in February, 1863, soon after Lincoln
​
had signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
​
​
On March 27, 1863, Johnson wrote a letter,
​
to his wife Eliza, from Washington City.
​
She lived in Greeneville, Tennessee,
​
but during that time, she was visiting their daughter,
​
Mary, in Louisville, Kentucky.
​
​​
Johnson went to see his wife Eliza in May of 1863,
​
in Louisville, Kentucky,
​
before he returned to Nashville, later that month.
Image Courtesy of Library of Congress
Andrew Johnson's
"Speech at Franklin, August 22, 1863"
is printed in,
"The Papers of Andrew Johnson, Volume 6,"
The University of Tennessee Press.
Image Licensed with Shutterstock
You were wounded, at Fort Wagner, Lewis, no more Fort Wagner, Lewis.
Only childhood,
expeditions of rest.
You're sayin Mississippi, Lewis,
can't no Mississippi, son,
we need to rest now, Lewis.
I pray she sing you a lullaby, son,
he need to sing me a lullaby, son,
in East Tennessee,
rest now, Lewis, dat be jus fine, son.
