Two Trains Running

Introduction

Two Trains Running, one of Wilson's most critical works pointing at the political activities, is a part of the black power movement of the 1950s and 60s, the moment of great turmoil in U.S. racial issues. It is one of a series of plays dealing with African American culture and history in the twentieth century. Its dominant theme is the way in which the poor urban black community reacted to legal victories of the civil rights movement. Wilson asserts that a sense of hopelessness prevailed with optimism and evolution in places such as 1969 metropolitan Pittsburgh, where rights not given to African Americans; those rights only mentioned in theory and not practiced in real. Many black lived a paltry life on very low wages and no prospects (Wilson, p. 1-128). Here, we are going to discuss the life of a black living in America, in the context of the play Two Trains Running.

The "Black" America

In "Two Trains Running" Wilson seems to be attempting to demonstrate the limitations placed on the black man by white society. Wilson is, in effect, telling us that black men must not become chained to a white system in which they never receive what they deserve. In essence, Wilson is suggesting, and he is drawing it out in the Hambone character, that blacks should separate themselves from white conceptions and power, because they will never receive fair compensation for their efforts. Because, chances are the legislators and officials are just as prejudiced and would file and forget the complaint.

What Wilson seems to be trying to assert here is that Hambone has become a victim of the white man's systematic denial of appropriate compensation. This is no simple "Civil Rights" matter. There is, so it seems, no way for today's black men to escape the wounds ...