Play about Willie Earle to get staged reading
Twenty-five years ago, Lucy Beam Hoffman opened a history book about South Carolina and her eyes fell on a 1947 mug shot of Willie Earle.
“It was as if I heard him say, ‘Tell my story,’” Hoffman recalled recently. “But I said ‘No,” and I put the book back on the shelf.”
But through the years the image of Earle, a black man lynched by an all-white mob in 1947, haunted Hoffman, a historian who teaches at Greenville Technical College. When offered the chance to collaborate on a play about Earle last year, Hoffman jumped at the opportunity.
The play Hoffman wrote with John Jeter, the former owner of the Handlebar music venue, will receive a full staged reading on Friday and Saturday at the Warehouse Theatre.
Hoffman and Jeter will be on hand following the reading of “The Last Lynching” to take questions from the audience.
The play centers on the trial of the 31 men accused of lynching Earle on Feb. 17, 1947. The mob of white taxicab drivers had taken Earle from the Pickens County jail and brutally beaten and murdered him. Earle had been accused of robbing and killing a white cab driver.
Though most of the 31 accused men confessed, the all-white male jury acquitted all of the men in the largest lynching trial in U.S. history.
“I was fascinated by the story,” Jeter said. “It’s so complex. It resonates with the whole history of racism and the tensions between the South and the North.”
Hoffman said the play concerns an important chapter in the state’s history that should never be overlooked.
“We continue to struggle with racism,” Hoffman said. “I’m a Holocaust scholar, so I’m very strong on ‘Never Forget.’”
The lynching and subsequent trial thrust Greenville into the national spotlight, attracting the attention of a variety of well-known public figures including radio commentator Walter Winchell, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, British writer Rebecca West and then-Gov. Strom Thurmond.
West, Thurmond and Winchell are prominent characters in Jeter’s and Hoffman’s play.
“I was blown away by the personalities involved,” Jeter said.
Hoffman said that Jeter, a former journalist, was responsible for much of the dialogue while Hoffman sought to ensure historical accuracy.
“I want the facts straight,” Hoffman said. “He wants a good story.”
The staged reading, produced by the Warehouse Theatre’s Distracted Globe, features a local cast under the direction of actor Andy Croston.
“It has been amazing to see the characters coming alive,” Hoffman said.
A small portion of the play was read recently at the Upcountry History Museum. This weekend’s performances feature the entire play.
Jeter first encountered Earle’s story several years ago and had long wanted to write about the incident.
“It felt like it was something I needed to do,” Jeter said. “The story was so captivating, powerful and compelling.”
As a part of their research, Jeter and Hoffman met Will Gravely, a former Pickens County resident who has become the foremost authority on the Earle lynching.
“He was seven years old when this happened,” Jeter said of Gravely, a professor emeritus of religion at the University of Denver. “He and his family lived right around the corner where this happened.”
The building that housed the Pickens County jail long ago was converted into the Pickens County Museum of Art and History.
Hoffman said Earle’s story remains a tragic but significant chapter in South Carolina’s history.
“It’s an important part of our background, and if we’re not aware that something like this can happen, we don’t change society,” Hoffman said.
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YOU CAN GO
What: A staged reading of “The Last Lynching” by John Jeter and Lucy Beam Hoffman, produced by the Distracted Globe
When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Where: The Warehouse Theatre, 37 August St.
Tickets: $8
Information: 864-235-6948 or www.warehousetheatre.com