the Walker-Smith House, where they are putting up their play, and then repeat the poetic passage about the state of World War II. We are then introduced to another repeated theme, the wedding of Constance and Roy, played by The Children. They have plans to get married, and throughout the play, they prepare for the big day. Constance recites a hundred-year-old poem while The Children repeat the World War II poem yet again. The play transitions yet again to Roy as an Editor, who states that he formed the Free African Society, and will lead a group of Negroes to Liberia. A third plot point is then introduced; Ship Vine and its passage to Liberia. Constance and Roy are then married. They trade Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy rings, and The Children throw flowers on them. The play then transitions again, and The Children as Passengers are waiting to board the Ship Vine to Liberia. The passengers recite a creed, and Constance and Roy board the ship. They ask if The General would like to join them, though he politely declines, and the ship sails away. As the ship disappears, The General is grabbed and beaten to death with stones. Some Children reenact an Indian battle, while others continue to draw the sailing ship and The General's death on the murals. The Asst. Curator, who has been showing fragmented film clips the entire play, has now disappeared. Constance tells Roy it is their wedding day, and suddenly, the Carriage Room explodes. Cries and yelling are heard, and it is revealed that the whites have bombed the church. The play ends with The Children solemnly saying, "They're dead. Connie and Roy are dead." Reception Black Children's Day, commissioned by Brown University in 1980, was not widely received. The play was never published, or produced. However, in 1995, a Village Voice critic, Michael Feingold, wrote, "with Beckett gone, Adrienne Kennedy is probably the boldest artist now writing for the theater." Themes Racism, violence (specifically towards children), surrealism to depict reality, rights for African Americans, slavery. Many themes can be drawn from Black Children's Day, as Kennedy's allegorical representation of the memory of childhood deals with multiple issues at once. The chaotic nature of the play represents the chaotic nature of childhood and oppression. Highly symbolic, the panels represent realistic historical representations of what The Children are reenacting on stage, and the repeated