GRIMKE, ANGELINA. Rachel. A Play in Three Acts. Small 8vo, original cloth-backed brown boards; title and author in gilt on front cover and spine; tips rubbed; one small dark spot on front cover; spine slightly faded, but quite legi-ble. Boston:

GRIMKE, ANGELINA. Rachel. A Play in Three Acts. Small 8vo, original cloth-backed brown boards; title and author in gilt on front cover and spine; tips rubbed; one small dark spot on front cover; spine slightly faded, but quite legi-ble. Boston: Cornhill, circa 1920 E800/1,200 FIRST EDITION IN BOOK FORM OF THE FIRST STAGED PLAY BY AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMAN. Angelina Weld Grimke (1880-1958), poet, writer, and journalist, was born in Boston, daughter of Archibald Grimke, executive director of the NAACP, and noted attorney at the time this play was produced. Rachel, often called "the beginning of staged or produced Black theatre," was staged by the NAACP at Myrtilla Miner Normal School on 3 and 4 March 1916. The original program states Rachel was "the first attempt to use the stage for race propaganda in order to enlighten the American people to the lamentable condition of ten million col-ored citizens in this free republic." Schomburg Collection, Sc. rare 812-G; Blockson Collection 6209. [SEE ILLUSTRATION].INSCRIBED