Wilson's Legacy

To find the legacy of August Wilson we have to look at what he’s done. As stated in the article “A tough lesson about the N-word” to know a person’s aims, it may help to know his history (Bogira). August Wilson is an American playwright who’s best known for his cycle of 10 plays that demonstrate the 20^th century African-American experience. All but one of Wilson’s plays are set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, the neighborhood where Wilson was born. While he misses his home he also dislikes it, he has said that he has this sort of love-hate relationship with Pittsburgh. Wilson wrote his first notable play in 1979, for which he earned a fellowship at the Minneapolis Playwright Center. This is where it all began for Wilson, in 1987 he earned his first Pultizer Prize for his play “Fences” (Wilson).[1] His plays were about how African Americans struggled in the 20^th century. He was so renowned that fourteen days after Wilson’s death, the Virginia Theatre in New York City’s Broadway Theater District was renamed the August Wilson Theatre.

His legacy reveals a larger message about race, power, and language in the sense that his plays demonstrated how African-Americans were treated in the 20^th century. They had no power and were treated terribly because of their race. Language played an important part because in his plays he would use the N word to show us what it was like to be an African-American in the 20^th century.