- for a whole year!
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If you just started this blog and want to read the earlier monologues, please
scroll down for the previous days or go to http://www.monologuestore.com/ -click on the Monologue Mania button please scroll down.
To start at the beginning - Feb. 13, - click here.
For a list of the blurbs from each day, click here
Help a playwright and get more great award-winning monologues - MonologueZone.com
Thank you for your comments - and for liking and sharing this site
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Note: A few words about 'free' - all these monologues are protected under copyright law and are free to read, free to perform and video as long as no money is charged. Once you charge admission or a donation, or include my work in an anthology, you need to contact me for royalty info.
If you just started this blog and want to read the earlier monologues, please
scroll down for the previous days or go to http://www.monologuestore.com/ -click on the Monologue Mania button please scroll down.
To start at the beginning - Feb. 13, - click here.
For a list of the blurbs from each day, click here
Help a playwright and get more great award-winning monologues - MonologueZone.com
Thank you for your comments - and for liking and sharing this site
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This is part of the same play as Day # 327 Why Fight? Jan. 5, 2015
More to Lose
More to Lose
(for The Society for Human Rights, The Henry Gerber story)
©Janet S. Tiger all rights reserved 2015
©Janet S. Tiger all rights reserved 2015
tigerteam1@gmail.com
(John Graves stands and faces the group. He is dressed well, and speaks like a pastor, which he is)
Gentlemen, I am a reasonable man. As a pastor, I must reason with my congregation every Sunday, I reason with individual members of my flock every day, and I would like to believe that reason is a major part of the founding of this group.
But as honored as I am to be a part of this group, I have to question Henry's reasons to immediately start fighting what will be a long and difficult battle.
I am all for the end, but do we have the means, as a tiny group, to begin this fight properly? Do we have the staying power, the strength to resist what will certainly be an onslaught of public - and private - opinion?
Perhaps I speak for caution because I have more to lose than all of you. Yes, we all face a common prejudice. In my community, the prejudice is strong, too, but Henry, you talk about hiding in plain view. That is because of all you can do that. I cannot. My grandfather was a slave, and the only reason my father was not born a slave was because.....(remembering)....when my grandmother became pregnant, my grandfather had heard about the Emancipation Proclamation, and he wanted his children to be born free.
(Deep breath) And so, in the middle of a war, my grandparents walked two hundred miles, through Rebel lines and incredible danger, to reach the Union troops. He enlisted, and served. I remember him talking about slavery, and now you ask me to risk my freedom.....which I am not afraid to do. But I need time to think about this.....you ask me now to be the President. You six will be the directors, but I will bear the standard......this is not an easy task.......I will be exposed to danger, to the risk of jail, which is its own form of slavery......I am not sure that I can take that responsibility so lightly..... all of the white society will hate me even more than they do today....but even worse, my own people will very possibly turn against me, which will leave me alone. Can I do this alone?.....
(He listens, nods)
You say that I will not be alone, I appreciate that.....that we are in this...together...(smiles)but I think that's part of the problem, Henry, I don't think society in 1924 wants to see men like us doing things like this....together.....
(The group laughs with him, he shakes his head)
And yet, I find, with all my reasons...every one reasonable, and I have every good reason to believe that this can come to no immediate good.....I can't believe what I am about to say....(deep breath)..I suppose I must have lost my reason, but .....gentlemen, I accept the Presidency of the Society for Human Rights.......in the hopes that one day, we will no longer have to hide the reason for our meetings....
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Final note - Am thinking about a different title. What about - Friendship and Freedom? This was the title of the society's newsletter.
(John Graves stands and faces the group. He is dressed well, and speaks like a pastor, which he is)
Gentlemen, I am a reasonable man. As a pastor, I must reason with my congregation every Sunday, I reason with individual members of my flock every day, and I would like to believe that reason is a major part of the founding of this group.
But as honored as I am to be a part of this group, I have to question Henry's reasons to immediately start fighting what will be a long and difficult battle.
I am all for the end, but do we have the means, as a tiny group, to begin this fight properly? Do we have the staying power, the strength to resist what will certainly be an onslaught of public - and private - opinion?
Perhaps I speak for caution because I have more to lose than all of you. Yes, we all face a common prejudice. In my community, the prejudice is strong, too, but Henry, you talk about hiding in plain view. That is because of all you can do that. I cannot. My grandfather was a slave, and the only reason my father was not born a slave was because.....(remembering)....when my grandmother became pregnant, my grandfather had heard about the Emancipation Proclamation, and he wanted his children to be born free.
(Deep breath) And so, in the middle of a war, my grandparents walked two hundred miles, through Rebel lines and incredible danger, to reach the Union troops. He enlisted, and served. I remember him talking about slavery, and now you ask me to risk my freedom.....which I am not afraid to do. But I need time to think about this.....you ask me now to be the President. You six will be the directors, but I will bear the standard......this is not an easy task.......I will be exposed to danger, to the risk of jail, which is its own form of slavery......I am not sure that I can take that responsibility so lightly..... all of the white society will hate me even more than they do today....but even worse, my own people will very possibly turn against me, which will leave me alone. Can I do this alone?.....
(He listens, nods)
You say that I will not be alone, I appreciate that.....that we are in this...together...(smiles)but I think that's part of the problem, Henry, I don't think society in 1924 wants to see men like us doing things like this....together.....
(The group laughs with him, he shakes his head)
And yet, I find, with all my reasons...every one reasonable, and I have every good reason to believe that this can come to no immediate good.....I can't believe what I am about to say....(deep breath)..I suppose I must have lost my reason, but .....gentlemen, I accept the Presidency of the Society for Human Rights.......in the hopes that one day, we will no longer have to hide the reason for our meetings....
(Lights down. End of
scene)
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Final note - Am thinking about a different title. What about - Friendship and Freedom? This was the title of the society's newsletter.
------------------------------------------------
Janet S. Tiger
858-736-6315
Member Dramatists Guild since 1983
Playwright-in-Residence
Swedenborg Hall 2006-8
1 comment:
I'm so excited about this play...and i like "The Society for Human Rights" as a title.
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