Flyin' West By Pearl Cleage

Act1 Scene 1 & 2

In the play, Flyin' West by Pearl Cleage, they sotry takes place during the 1890's where African women born into slavery move from Memphis to settle down in Nicodemus, Kansas in the West in hopes for better life opportunities away from racism. Although the three women, Sophie Fannie, and Minnie are not blood related sister, they consider themselves sisters from the struggles like racism and segragation they go through in life together.

As they live in Nicodemus, Kansas, all of them especially Sophia begin to worry about the threats of white speculators trying to ruin their black community and turn it into white land just like majority of everything around them. As they worry, Sophie continues to be a strong, independent woman who holds her ground and cintinues to believe that one day, they'll be able to live their lives as free worthy people who can own land. They wait excitedly for their sister, Minnie, and her husband Frank's arrival from London, whom they haven't seen for almost two years. Minnie and Frank's stay in Nicodemus teaches them a thing or two about how there is a limited amount of freedom in the West compared to their lifestyles in London. Because they are both so used to a free lifestyle in England with a bunch of white folks, it allows them to experience a different kind of freedom being in the West. Sophie continues to launch plans in expanding the land filled with Africans who are able to live in a working environment.

Although there were no vocabulary words that I needed to look up, I did want to mention that reading this story gave me a better understanding of what African Americans had to go through to receive the kind of freedom they have today. We all obviously know that they had to go through racisism and segragation for years and it's a good book that can teach us and give more knowledge about the specific struggles they had to go through that made everyone and everything equal today regardless of our color.