August Wilson Quotes on America (6 Quotes)

American society as a whole has a very short memory. There are a lot of things we don't know or have allowed ourselves to forget. I was visiting a high school, Seward High School, in 1987, and one of the students in the classroom thought that slavery had ended in 1960. He was very serious about it.

There's no idea in the world that is not contained by black life. I could write forever about the black experience in America.

My plays are talky I say shut up and listen. They are about black men talking, and in American society you don't too often have that because the feeling is 'What do black men have to say'

Blacks in America want to forget about slavery -- the stigma, the shame. That's the wrong move. If you can't be who you are, who can you be How can you know what to do We have our history. We have our book, which is the blues. And we forget it all.

To my observation, the black middle class has failed to return the expertise and sophistication and resources that they've gained in American society over the past 50 years back to the community,

You have to make your own definition of yourself. That's crucial. When I do interviews, I am expected to become some sociologist. I have to speak to the condition of black America. My preference would be Let's talk about theater. Let's talk about art. The fact that I am black is self-evident.