Black Men Walking

Testament

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781786824462
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Diskriminierung & Rassenbeziehungen

A compelling, surprising new show that turns a spotlight onto Britain's missing histories. Dedicated to the Black Men's Walking Group. Thomas, Matthew and Richard walk. They walk the first Saturday of every month. Walking and talking.
But this walk… Maybe they should have cancelled, but they needed the walk today. Out in the Peaks, they find themselves forced to walk backwards through two thousand years before they can move forwards.

WE WALK PART 1

The three male actors perform “We Walk” a sung choral chant building to vocal breaths into ANCESTOR’s first poem (The poem is broken up between the three male actors taking on the persona of the ANCESTORS unless otherwise stated).

ANCESTORS: We walk

We walk

We walk

We walk for freedom

We walk for honour

For beauty

For love

We walk out our identity

We walk for sanctuary

We walk to claim this land

We walk OUR land

We walk in the footsteps of kings

So heavy

Trumpets!

We are the faaaaannfaaaaaare!

Faaaanfare!

Faaanfare!

The declaration

The keyholders

Guildsman

Merchants

Healers

Emperors

We are the past

The future

We walk

Those that marched and those that were

marched upon

And those that march

The writers and the written upon

And those that write

Though we are written into the landscape you don’t see us

We walked England before the English

We walk THIS land

The dales

The moors

The peaks

The vale

Dark summits

Orphaned valleys

Hidden gorges

We walk over the same waters

Across the Ouse

The Rother

The Ure

The Aire

Derwent

Mouth open to foreign sons

Become freshwater

We walk under the same stars

Under the same night sky

Celestial bodies

Absorbing innumerable refractions of colour

Into the same disparate blackness

Walking upon stone

Quartz

Jet

Mica

Feldspar

Knuckles cracked white and ashy

Stones in the drywall

Millstones to the mill

A commonality.

A humanity.

Lives woven through these Ridings

Home

Black in the white rose

God’s own country

Even as we die here

Looking out onto a panorama of years

Despite death squinting through the vale in
readiness.

Now we see one

Who will fall

Into us

Space has always been here

Time has always been here

We have always been here!

And we walk

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction

Characters

WE WALK PART 1

ACT ONE

ACT TWO

ACT THREE

ACT ONE

SCENE 1

THOMAS: I mean, I’ve got the keys in my hand, stood in the hallway. At the bottom of the stairs.

I’ve come in. Still got my coat on. Hello. Put my bag down. Nobodys’ said anything. Hello.

I can hear the TV’s on in the lounge. It’s that property programme about Escaping to the Country. She loves that show. You can’t really talk to her when that’s on. It wasn’t that different when kids were here...