First Black Playwright Mounts Campaign to Produce Play on Broadway

Garland Anderson—a Black bellhop in San Francisco—wrote 'Appearances' and mounted a grassroots fundraising campaign to bring it to Broadway, meeting with President Calvin Coolidge in his effort. The play eventually opened on Broadway in 1925, making Anderson the first Black playwright to have a full-length play produced on Broadway. The story of a Black bellhop falsely accused of rape challenged both racial stereotypes and the limits of Black representation in mainstream theater.