This 1923 one-act folk drama was the first nonmusical African American play to reach Broadway , and remains the best-known among Willis Richardson's works. The title character is a kindly old woman who picks up stray chips of wood and coal to sustain herself, but has managed to save up some money to give her son when he returns from prison. The son unhesitatingly gives the money to the family with whom his mother has been staying, so that their victrola will not be repossessed. Originally produced by Raymond O'Neil's Ethiopian Art Players on a triple bill, it went on to the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem, and thence to Broadway.
See also Harlem Renaissance.
The Historical Dictionary of the American Theater. James Fisher.