Publisher's Synopsis
Eugene Ebota doesn't speak because the African American in 1920's America didn't have a voice. Fortunately, he does today but it's complicated by having a divisive President in the Whitehouse and 475,900 nonwhites in American jails.But this is a story about more than racial discrimination, it's about addiction whether it's the alcohol that fuelled Jedidiah's father's drunken rages, or the power the Union Pacific Coal Company wields in being able to close down the Lost Springs coal mine.But race does play an important role and resonates with today's world in which all countries are having to face the realities of their immigration policies and how they affect not just the immigrants attempting to get in but the residents determined to keep them out.For Ishmael Nadab, Mayor of Concourse County which includes the towns of Glenrock, Rolling Hills, and Lost Springs, his re-election could be determined by the 118 employees of the Lost Springs coal mine, but also by those sympathetic to Eugene Ebota's cause who feel he's been made a scapegoat for the Union Pacific Coal Company's poor safety record. As the manager of the mine and Mayor of Concourse County, Nadab is wary of making any pronouncement on either the temporary closure of the mine or on Eugene Ebota who is accused of causing the explosion that led to two coalminers' deaths.The play climaxes with the Ku Klux Klan surrounding the Station House demanding the Chief of Police to hand over Ebota.
