Richard Berry Harrison: “de Lawd” of the theater

By BENJAMIN SANDERFORD

SELMA — The Richard B. Harrison Gymnasium. Old-timers remember that it was once part of a high school of the same name, the highest institution of learning for the black residents of Selma.

Few, however, remember the man after whom it was named.

Richard Berry Harrison was born in London, Ontario, Canada on Sept. 28, 1864 to parents who had escaped slavery in the United States. His first job was as a newspaper boy for the London Advertiser, the local publication.

He developed an interest in theater at an early age, attending plays whenever he had the money and giving recitations at school and in church.

Harrison moved with his parents and four siblings to Windsor, across from Detroit, during an upsurge of racism in London. An arsonist set fire to the family home shortly after they left.

Harrison’s father died of a stroke a few years later. It was then that Harrison left for Detroit, and he would live the rest of his life in the United States.

Now a teenager, Harrison worked for a time as a bellhop, but, after reading Shakespeare’s “Richard III” to his employer’s guests one New Year’s Eve, began to consider a career in acting.

He studied drama at the Detroit Training School of Dramatic Art and gained a private tutor in Edward Weitzel, the British-born actor and drama editor at the Detroit Free Press. It was not easy to be a black aspiring actor. After being rejected for the role of Dr. Faustus in Goethe’s “Faust” on account of his race, Harrison went on tour as a dramatic reader. He impressed audiences by reciting Shakespearean plays and the poems of his best friend, the noted AfricanAmerican writer Paul Lawrence Dunbar whom he met in 1891. Harrison’s journeys took him from Toronto to New Orleans and introduced him to many new acquaintances, such as a young Booker T. Washington and an elderly Frederick Douglass. He continued traveling until 1896.

The previous year, he married Gertrude Janet Washington, the first black graduate of the Chicago Conservatory of Music. The couple had a son and a daughter.

Now that he had a family, Harrison needed a steadier income than one that depended on the generosity of strangers. Eventually, after spending many years in California, the historically black North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro invited him to teach a dramatics school for the summer. He continued teaching there until 1929.

All Harrison’s years of dedication to his calling paid off in 1930 when he was cast as “de Lawd” (the Lord) in the Broadway play “The Green Pastures” by Marc Connelly, a white man. He had reservations about accepting the role. He knew that black actors were often asked to play unintelligent, irresponsible clowns, and it was not a stereotype he wished to propagate.

Nevertheless, Harrison decided to take on the challenge. The opening performance on Feb. 26 was already historic since it was the first on Broadway to have an all-black cast, but everyone agreed that Harrison was the star of the show. It ran for 16 months.

There followed a tour reminiscent of the one Harrison went on at the start of his career, except, instead of playing every role in “Macbeth” alone, he played one: de Lawd in The Green Pastures, accompanied by a troupe of supporting actors.

They visited more than 200 towns all over the U.S. and Canada, including a stop in October 1934 at the Grand Theatre in London, where they staged three productions in two days. For Harrison, performing in a role that he owned in the place where his love of theater began must have felt like the culmination of his life.

Five months later, March 4, 1935, he was featured on the cover of Time magazine. He died 10 days later.

Harrison’s fame receded after his death, but, for millions of black Americans and Canadians, he had become an inspiration. Here was a man who had reached the top of the acting profession despite having been excluded from the big stage for most of his life.

For his accomplishments, Harrison received the Spingarn Medal for distinguished achievement from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Several universities also gave him honorary degrees.

Black communities emblazoned his name on their educational and literary institutions, including, in 1957, the former Richard B. Harrison High School in Selma.

Benjamin Sanderford, a resident of Clayton, studied social science at UNC Greensboro. He can be reached at benwsanderford@gmail.com. The biographical information on Richard B. Harrison is detailed in the play “Elocution.” It can be accessed at www.jeffculbert.ca/.