Printed in the Birth Control Review, September 1919
SUMMARY
Melinda Jasper is doing her best to raise her ten children. Her husband is often away at work while Melinda raises the children, keeps house, and does domestic chores for extra money. Melinda is very happy that her eldest child, Lindy, has the opportunity to go to school at Tuskegee and believes that education will help Lindy have a better future. A government nurse, Elizabeth Shaw, comes to check on Melinda after her most recent pregnancy and scolds her for working when she should be resting. Shortly after her visit, Elizabeth discovers that Melinda is very sick and Melinda dies in a matter of minutes. Lindy can no longer go to school and must stay at home to care for the children.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ THIS PLAY
- This play is written in dialect. This was years before David Mamet.
- It depicts the everyday life of a struggling family and there are no contrived storylines. The obstacles in the story are the family’s inability to meet their basic needs.
- The play follows the dramatic convention of dropping you into the middle of the story.
- This play will inspire you to not have children.
- This play was written by a queer woman of color in the early twentieth century and we still don’t have enough plays written by queer people of color.
MEMORABLE LINES
MISS SHAW: [gently] God is not punishing you, Malinda, you are punishing yourselves by having children every year. Take this last baby–you knew that with your weak heart you should never have had it and yet–
MRS. JASPER: But whut kin Ah do–de chillern come!
MISS SHAW: You must be careful!
* * *
MISS SHAW: Malinda, when I took my oath as nurse, I swore to abide by the laws of the State, and the law forbids me telling you what you have a right to know!
* * *
LINDY: [as she sits on the edge of her trunk and stares in a dazed, hopeless way at the floor] I reckon yu’d bettah walk up de road a piece to meet Dad an’ hurry him erlong. An’ stop in de Redmon’s an’ tell ’em dey cain’t have de wash tomorrer ’cause– [gulping back her tears] ’cause Ma’s dead; but I’ll git ’em out myself jes ez soon ez I kin. An’, Miles, leave word fo’ Sam Jones ‘at he need’n’ come fo’ de trunk.
HISTORICAL NOTES
- It is implied that the nurse is unable to tell Melinda about birth control because it was illegal at the time. Birth control was not nationally legalized until 1972 when the Supreme Court ruled in Eisenstadt v. Baird that all individuals have the right to use contraception.
- Burrill graduated from Emerson in Boston, Massachusetts in 1904.
- Burrill taught history and English and directed plays at several Washington, D.C. high schools.
- Burrill’s partner was Lucy Diggs Stowe, the first Dean of Women at Howard University.
- Burrill and Stowe’s home in Washington, D.C. is on the National Register of Historic Places for its significance to Black and Queer history.
Photo Credit: Gabi Sanda, “Pills,” 2016