August Wilson: A Life

by Patti Hartigan

He wrote a scathing essay headlined “I Want a Black Director” for the October 1990 issue of Spin magazine. The special issue was guest-edited by filmmaker Spike Lee, who had made a name for himself with She’s Gotta Have It and Do the Right Thing. He was at work on his next film, Jungle Fever. The director was as vocal as Wilson was reserved, but they wholeheartedly agreed on the issue of Black directors directing films about Black culture and history. It made sense that Lee and the magazine gave Wilson a platform to take a public stand. In his essay, Wilson laid out his case that Black Americans share their own unique culture and sensibilities. “We are an African people who have been here since the early 17th century,” he wrote. “We have a different way of responding to the world. We have different ideas about religion, different manners of social intercourse. We have different ideas about style, about language. We have different aesthetics. Someone who does not share the specifics of a culture remains an outsider, no matter how astute a student or how well-meaning their intentions.”