The many financial hardships that the play’s Black characters face make it nearly impossible for them to prosper. For example, the local mill in Pittsburgh’s Hill District takes advantage of its Black employees by offering room and board and then overcharging for rent. What’s more, the mill pays its workers less than it originally promised, ensuring that they’ll get behind on rent and go into debt. In this way, the mill traps Black workers in an exploitative job; they can’t leave until they’re out of debt, but they can’t pay their debt on the mill’s paltry wages. Without the freedom to use their labor how they please, the play’s characters aren’t that much better off than they were when they were enslaved.
This lack of economic opportunity is a defining feature of Black oppression in the decades after emancipation. As Solly notes, Black people can’t benefit from owning farmland if they don’t have a plow. In other words, how meaningful is “freedom” if Black Americans don’t actually have the resources and opportunities to prosper? Caesar Wilks’s story illustrates this conundrum: he tried to make an honest living selling food, but he got shut down for being unlicensed, and then he tried to buy a boardinghouse, but he couldn’t get a loan because he had nothing to use as collateral. Of course, Caesar didn’t have collateral because the economic system made it so hard for Black people to obtain anything valuable in the first place. Caught in this dilemma, he started a gambling ring, wound up in jail, and then decided that the only way to get ahead was to help white people oppress Black people. If this is what “opportunity” looks like, then it seems that Black people have no way to thrive. Given this, it’s significant that Solly eventually burns down the mill in a show of solidarity with striking workers. This is an example of the violence and desperation that economic exploitation causes, suggesting that this economic system is inherently unstable. As the characters come to an increasing awareness of the exploitation that they and their community face, they push back harder, showing that such a society is bound to eventually collapse.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Economic Exploitation ThemeTracker
Economic Exploitation Quotes in Gem of the Ocean
They gonna have some more the way Caesar keep evicting people. He put out two more families yesterday. He charging by the week. They get one week behind and he put them out. He don’t ask no questions. He just gather up what little bit of stuff they got and sit it out on the street. Then he arrest them for being out there.
They had a man down in Kentucky was accused of stealing a horse. He said he didn’t do it. Turned him into an outlaw. Made him the biggest horse thief in Kentucky. He lived to steal horses. He must of stole five hundred horses. And every one he sent back word: I stole that one but I didn’t steal the first one. I stole that one but I didn’t steal the first one. They never did catch him. He died and the horse thieving stopped.
They say they was paying two dollars a day but when we got there they say a dollar fifty. Then they say we got to pay two dollars room and board. They sent us over to a place the man say we got to put two dollars on top of that. Then he put two men to a room with one bed. […] I asked one fellow what board meant. He say they supposed to give you something to eat. They ain’t give us nothing. I say okay. I can’t make them give me nothing. What I’m gonna do? I got to eat. I bought a loaf of bread for a dime. A bowl of soup cost ten cents around the corner. I wasn’t desperate. I had sixty-five cents to make it payday. I ate half the bread and say I would get a bowl of soup tomorrow. Come payday they give me three dollars say the rest go on my bill. I had to give the man what own the house two dollars. What I’m gonna do, Miss Tyler? I told the people at the mill I was gonna get another job. They said I couldn’t do that ’cause I still owed them money and they was gonna get the police on me. I was gonna go to another city but then before I had a chance I killed a man.
ELI: Freedom is what you make it.
SOLLY: That’s what I’m saying. You got to fight to make it mean something. All it mean is you got a long row to hoe and ain’t got no plow. Ain’t got no seed. Ain’t got no mule. What good is freedom if you can’t do nothing with it? I seen many a man die for freedom but he didn’t know what he was getting. If he had known he might have thought twice about it.
CAESAR: Are you a troublemaker, Citizen Barlow? You ever been in jail?
CITIZEN: I ain’t never been in jail.
CAESAR: That’s where you heading. You got to have visible means of support around here. If I see you standing around looking to steal something and you ain’t got two dollars in your pocket you going to jail. You understand? Get you a job and stay out of trouble. Stay off the streets.
It wasn’t much but it was twenty-five cents more than he had. He took and threw it away. He can’t see past his nose. He can’t see it’s all set up for him to do anything he want. See, he could have took and bought him a can of shoe polish and got him a rag. If he could see that far he’d look up and find twenty-five dollars in his pocket. Twenty-five dollars buys you an opportunity.
I’ll tell you whose fault it is. It’s Abraham Lincoln’s fault. He ain’t had no idea what he was doing. He didn’t know like I know. Some of these niggers was better off in slavery. They don’t know how to act otherwise. You try and do something nice for niggers and it’ll backfire on you every time. You try and give them an opportunity by giving them a job and they take and throw it away. Talking about they ain’t going to work.
You don’t understand I give the people hope when they ain’t got nothing else. They take that loaf of bread and make it last twice as long. They wouldn’t do that if they didn’t pay one and a half times for it. I’m helping people.
Went down to the bank to borrow some money. They told me I needed some collateral. Say you need something to borrow money against. I say all right, I’ll get me some collateral. I opened me up a gambling joint in the back of the barbershop. Sold whiskey. The police closed it down. I had to put some bullet holes in a couple of niggers and the police arrested me. Put me on the county farm.
If you gonna do it…do it right! They wave the law on one end and hit you with a billy club with the other. I told myself I can’t just sit around and collect dog shit while the people drowning. The people drowning in sorrow and grief. That’s a mighty big ocean. They got the law tied to their toe. Every time they try and swim the law pull them under.
SOLLY: […] It’s dangerous out here. People walking around hunting each other. If you ain’t careful you could lose your eye or your arm. I seen that. I seen a man grab hold to a fellow and cut off his arm. Cut it off at the shoulder. He had to work at it a while…but he cut it clean off. The man looked down saw his arm gone and started crying. After that he more dangerous with that one arm than the other man is with two. He got less to lose. There’s a lot of one-arm men walking around.
ELI: That’s what Caesar can’t understand. He can’t see the people ain’t got nothing to lose.
SOLLY: […] I knew all them guns wasn’t on account of me. I figured they was fighting for themselves. And if that would help them that would help us.
ELI: They never said they was gonna help us. They said the war was gonna help us. After that it be every man for himself.
SOLLY: I told them you get what’s in it for you and I’ll get what’s in it for me. You get yours and I’ll get mine and we’ll settle the difference later. We still settling it.
Yeah, I burned it down! The people might get mad but freedom got a high price. You got to pay. No matter what it cost. You got to pay. I didn’t mind settling up the difference after the war. But I didn’t know they was gonna settle like this. I got older I see where I’m gonna die and everything gonna be the same. I say well at least goddamn it they gonna know I was here! The people gonna know about Solly Two Kings!
