The central action of Fences unfolds in the space of a few months in the late 1950’s; it is 1957 when the play begins. The last scene takes place in 1965, on the day of the funeral of the protagonist, Troy Maxson. On that day, the other characters in the play come to terms with the flawed human being who has been the most powerful force in their lives. Their effort to arrive at a just understanding of this man duplicates the effort in which the play involves its audience. Fences offers a sympathetic but unsentimental portrait of its unforgettable central character.

In 1957, Troy Maxson is fifty-three years old. He has been married for eighteen years to Rose, whose devotion to him has not necessarily blinded her to the more difficult traits of his character. Their son, Cory, is a high school senior, and his accomplishments on the football field have led to his being sought by a recruiter from a college in North Carolina. Troy also has a thirty-four-year-old son, Lyons, by a previous marriage. Lyons’s visits to his father are generally motivated by a desire to borrow money.

Troy also has a brother, Gabe, who as a result of a war injury carries a metal plate in his head; in his damaged mind, he carries the conviction that he is the Archangel Gabriel. Troy feels guilty that money paid to Gabe for his disability has made it possible for Troy to buy the house in which he now lives. Troy has provided Gabe with a roof over his head, but Gabe has recently moved out to Miss Pearl’s rooming house, desiring increased independence.

Troy’s past emerges in the course of the play. At the age of fourteen, after a showdown with a brutal father, Troy set out on his own, hitching his way north to Pittsburgh. With no job and no place to live, he stole to survive. After the birth of Lyons, it seemed he had to steal even more. After killing a man in the course of a robbery, Troy was sentenced to fifteen years in prison, where he developed a gift for baseball. By the time Troy was released from prison, his wife had gone, taking Lyons with her. Troy married Rose but continued to dream of playing baseball in the major leagues. He was born too soon, however, for that dream to be possible: By the time Jackie Robinson was playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Troy was in his mid-forties.

Troy now works for the sanitation department, and he has dared to question the practice of assigning the responsibility of driving the trucks to white workers, while Black men do the lifting. His friend Bono listens patiently to Troy’s complaints, but Troy now has something else on his mind. Troy has been giving his attention to Alberta, who works at Taylor’s, a local hangout. He claims there is no harm in his conduct. Troy used to run around with women, but that was before he married Rose.

Troy is skeptical about his son’s football ambitions. Troy’s experiences with baseball have taught him that young Black men have no future in major-league sports. In addition, Cory’s obsession with football is leading him to forget his chores, including helping Troy build the fence Rose has asked for, and to neglect his job at the A&P. In fact, Troy has obstinately refused to talk seriously about signing the paper that would allow Cory to accept the football scholarship he has been offered. He is angry that Cory has cut back on his hours at the A&P; he is now, Troy understands, working only on weekends in order to give himself time for football. Troy is so hard in his refusals that Cory asks Troy why he has never liked him. Troy asserts that liking is not the issue. Cory is his son, and he looks after his son because that is a man’s responsibility.

Two weeks later, Troy is promoted to driver. Bono notices that he has stopped by Taylor’s on his way home to give the good news to Alberta. Troy has no driver’s license, but he is not worried. He has other matters on his mind. He has learned that Cory has been lying to him; Cory has not been working at the A&P at all. As a result, Troy has ordered the coach to dismiss Cory from the football team, thus killing Cory’s dream of college and all its promises. Cory accuses Troy of being motivated by fear; he is afraid that his son will turn out to be better than he is. That, says Troy, is “strike one.”

The following day, after bailing out his brother Gabe, whose habit of breaking into song when the spirit moves him has led to an arrest for disturbing the peace, Troy tells Rose that Alberta is carrying his baby. He tries to explain that his relationship with Alberta does not imply any rejection of Rose, to whom he has otherwise been faithful for eighteen years. With Alberta, he can momentarily escape the pains, pressures, and disappointments of his life. Rose reminds him that she has shared those pains and has not looked for her own escape. As the anger of the moment grows, Troy grabs Rose’s arm. When Cory comes to his mother’s defense, Troy tells him that that is “strike two.”

Alberta dies giving birth to Troy’s daughter. Troy begs Rose to take care of the child, who is, after all, innocent. Rose agrees. The child will have a mother. However, Rose tells Troy that he will be a womanless man from then on.

At work, Troy is doing well. He has been promoted; he is now picking up white people’s garbage. Gabe, however, is now in an institution. Troy carries the guilt of having signed the commitment papers, an act all the more troubling because it means that some of the pension money that is rightfully Gabe's now comes directly to Troy. Cory, in the wake of Troy’s infidelity, now treats his father with open disrespect, telling Troy he no longer counts. This provokes a struggle in which Troy manages to prevail. There is no longer any hope of reconciliation between the two men, and Cory leaves home.

He returns on the day of Troy’s funeral in 1965. Troy’s daughter Raynell, now seven, meets her brother for the first time. Lyons is there, too, released for the occasion from the workhouse, where he is serving time for cashing other people’s checks. Cory, now a corporal in the Marines, tells his mother that he will not attend the funeral. Rose tells Cory that he will not become a man by disrespecting his father. Troy had many faults, she says, but he always meant to do good more than he meant to do harm. Cory does not directly answer what his mother has said, but he tells Raynell to get ready so they will not be late for the funeral.

Gabe has come with his trumpet to blow open the gates of heaven for his brother’s arrival. The trumpet has no mouthpiece, and when he raises it to his lips, no sound comes out. On the verge of an awful realization, Gabe instead begins a dance and something like a song. As he finishes his dance, he is satisfied that the gates of heaven stand open for Troy.

Fences depicts the quiet collapse of an ordinary African American family in the late 1950’s. The breakdown of Troy Maxson’s family centers on the struggle between father and son over conflicting visions of Black identity, aspirations, and values. The first act presents Troy as a dutiful provider for his wife, Rose, and his son, Cory; he has steady employment as a sanitation worker. Troy’s past, however, has left him a scarred man—a man of boundless energy and boisterous bitterness. Troy’s childhood was soured by a stern and overbearing father. Troy experienced racism as an African American athlete in the late 1950’s: Although he had proven he had the ability to play professional baseball, he was prevented by his color from playing in the major leagues. Frustrated throughout his young life, Troy was driven to crime and ended up in jail. There is no aspect of his life in which he does not feel confined—fenced in. Because Troy is unable to rid himself of the pain and poverty of his past, his adult life is constricted. Throughout the play, there is a silent visual reminder of this constriction—an unfinished fence that Troy has been building around his backyard.

The tension between Troy and his younger son, Cory, in the first act is one among several important elements of the play. Troy is both bitterly jealous and protective of Cory, who is being recruited by a local college for a football scholarship. Troy refuses to let Cory accept the scholarship because he is afraid that Cory will come to know the hurt his father has experienced in the world of sports. Equally important, Troy is overwhelmed with envy: What if Cory could, in fact, overcome the barriers of race and become a professional athlete? Constricted by these feelings, Troy invites the wrath of Cory, who eventually joins the Marines as a way to redress the wrongs which typify the fenced-in feeling Cory experiences with his father. Troy remains unyielding.

Act 2, scene 1, turns on a conflict between Troy and his wife, Rose. Troy tells Rose about his affair with a younger woman, who is about to give birth to his child. Troy’s attempt to comfort Rose by explaining that the other woman allows him “to be a part of myself that I ain’t never been” is futile. Rose rejects Troy’s explanation: “Ain’t nothing you can say, Troy. Ain’t no way of explaining that.” Rose is deeply hurt, and the chance for any future happiness for the couple is permanently impaired. Troy’s mistress dies after giving birth to Troy’s baby. In an act of courage, Rose assumes the responsibility of rearing Troy’s baby, an act which might well symbolize the pliancy of the African American mother who often must hold the African American family together. The husband-wife conflict in Fences contrasts the wounded male egos of men like Troy with the courageous and pragmatic strength of women like Rose.

Troy’s son Lyons (by a former wife) fares no better with Troy than does his half-brother Cory. The fact that Troy himself was an abused son makes him an uncaring father to Lyons, who, like Troy, ends up in jail. Even when Troy appears to be at his best, there is an air of ambivalence about him. While Troy’s attitude toward his brother, Gabriel, a brain-damaged World War II veteran who lives under the illusion that he is the angel Gabriel, is generally one of caring and concern, Troy exploits him nevertheless. When Gabriel receives compensation from the government for his disability, Troy uses the money to buy a house. Gabriel cannot stay with Troy and his family because of Troy’s compelling need for self-justification. Troy’s purest, or least ambivalent, feelings are for Bono, a longtime drinking friend and colleague; yet, in their sober moments together, a bitter wariness exists between them.

Troy Maxson’s life begins to turn completely sour and grim when he and Cory have a serious physical altercation. At the conclusion of Act 2, scene 1, Cory comes to the defense of his mother as Rose struggles to get away from Troy and the news of his extramarital affair. Cory approaches Troy from behind and grabs him; Cory and Troy fight and Troy is beaten. The scene ends as Troy warns Cory: “All right. That’s strike two. You stay away from around me, boy. Don’t you strike out. You living with a full count. Don’t you strike out.” Troy and Cory’s first physical altercation leads to their final confrontation in Act 2, scene 4. Cory returns home for his belongings, and Troy challenges him, backing Cory against a tree. Cory picks up a bat to defend himself, but he does not hit his father because Rose rushes out into the yard and pleads with him to stop. Troy’s fragile male ego is destroyed, and the scene ends as Troy speaks words that symbolize his feelings of emasculation and utter defeat: “I can’t taste nothing. Hallelujah! I can’t taste nothing no more!”

Act 2, scene 5, brings all Troy Maxson’s innocent victims together as they prepare for the funeral of their rebellious yet responsible father, husband, brother, and provider. Troy died suddenly, the audience is told, while swinging a baseball bat in his backyard. Lyons receives a temporary leave from jail, and Cory gets a furlough to attend their father’s funeral. While Rose, Lyons, Gabriel, and Troy’s daughter Raynell all seem to express a genuine attitude of amiability and fondness for Troy, Cory remains decidedly ambivalent in his feelings toward him. The play ends with Gabriel’s call to Saint Peter to open the gates of heaven and let Troy enter.

Maxson home

Maxson home. African American home in an unspecified city, possibly Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Maxsons’ yard, which is an extension of their house, represents Troy Maxson’s ambivalent feelings: his spirit, large like his body, desires the rootedness of home but resists its limitations. The responsibilities of his family bind him even more closely than did the prison in which he has spent fifteen years. The yard keeps Troy close to home, yet is not as confining as the house itself. The unfenced yard also signifies the era of the play, a time when African Americans were soon to loosen the bonds of some legal and social restraints, with the turbulent Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s.

As Troy’s friend Bono comments, “some people build fences to keep people out . . . and other people build fences to keep people in.” The partially built fence surrounding the Maxsons’ yard represents the conflicts of the play. Rose, Troy’s wife, wants a fence to keep her world safe, to keep the family close, but to Troy, the fence represents confinement, so he has delayed its completion. The bond between Rose and Troy, like the incomplete fence, fails to prevent Troy’s straying with another woman. Troy’s inner fences and the fences that the white world has built around him trap him in his meager-paying job. The literal fence, that Troy and Cory were to have built together, could have strengthened their relationship, but Troy’s procrastination and Cory’s dreams of winning a football scholarship prevent this outcome. However, Troy, too, desires to keep things out; he wants to keep out Death, with whom he had once wrestled and won. Ironically, Troy completes the literal fence after his complete alienation from his wife and son, and his fence finally fails to keep out Death.

August Wilson introduces his audience to the primary conflict in Fences at the very beginning of the play. All the characters are introduced in Act 1, and their interrelationships are explained; the conflict between father and son is imminent. In Troy’s stubborn effort to prevent his own harsh history from repeating itself with his son Cory, Troy imposes his legacy on Cory’s dreams and aspirations. Heinous and misguided as Troy’s anger is, it does not seem irrational, because Wilson makes the audience understand the facts of Troy’s life. In a gripping speech (act 1, scene 4), Troy takes the audience along every painful mile of his “walking blues.” Fleeing from the rural racism of the South only to encounter the impoverished slums of the North, Troy Maxson epitomizes the African American males of his generation who were psychologically scarred by their social status: They were neither enslaved nor free men.

Act 2, scene 1, further complicates the conflict between Troy and Cory, as Wilson creates conflict among other characters. The turning point of the play occurs when Rose attacks Troy for crossing her boundaries. This crucial moment changes the direction of the action and paves the way for the complications to unwind. The process by which Cory and the others reconcile themselves with Troy—and retrieve the pride he lost—is manifested in the play’s affecting denouement: It can only be accomplished after Troy’s death. Though the conclusion aims to reestablish a stable situation so that the drama may end, the audience is left with feelings of ambivalence. This ambivalence is the hallmark of Wilson’s achievement; he makes the audience understand Troy Maxson’s behavior without ever resorting to sentimentalizing him.

While Wilson’s tableau-like staging could serve any front-porch play, his clever use of the fence is another way in which the play achieves its effect. The fence provides a silent commentary on the action taking place all around it. Almost all August Wilson’s humor, poetry, and social observation somehow center on the fence. The tensions created by the image of the fence heighten the play’s conflict and invite the audience to participate in an emotional identification with the characters, who demand that the audience take sides in their disagreements.

Professional Athletics
By 1957, the year in which Fences is set, Black athletes had become a visible part of professional and college sports, at least superficially. The previously all-white teams from the World War II era and earlier began to include Black players in 1947 when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in professional baseball, a line drawn in the 1890s. However, this shift did not bring the level of opportunity and equality that Black individuals had hoped for. As more Black fans started to support the now-integrated teams, the Negro Leagues began to decline and disappear. Troy Maxson, who had played in the Negro Leagues, found that the transition to integrated leagues came too late for him; he was now too old to play professional baseball.

The Negro Leagues were financial disasters for players; salaries were insufficient to support a family. Even a decade after integration, the major leagues did not offer a financial windfall for Black players. The enormous salaries that would become synonymous with professional sports in the 1980s and 1990s were non-existent in the late 1950s. The situation in college athletics was also different for Black athletes compared to their white counterparts. Black players were often not allowed to live in campus housing, and when traveling for games, they were sometimes denied lodging at the same hotels as their teammates. Instead, Black players were housed at the YMCA or with Black families. Given these circumstances, it is understandable that Troy is wary of recruiters who promise scholarships and potential careers in professional sports to his son.

Employment
At the start of the twentieth century, a flood of immigrants entered the United States, finding opportunities and jobs in factories, offices, and small businesses. The white workforce was abundant, and employers took advantage of the eager new citizens, who believed that hard work would allow them to marry, raise a family, and achieve the American Dream. However, for Black people, who were also migrating to large northern cities in significant numbers, the American Dream remained an elusive goal, always just out of reach.

Troy acknowledges that without utilizing his brother's disability benefits, he wouldn't have been able to buy a house, despite working diligently for nearly two decades. The predominantly white workforce meant that Black individuals were frequently the last hired and the first fired. Moreover, many Black workers lacked the necessary training to advance in their careers. While the job of hauling garbage was accessible to Black people, even within this role, there was a racial division of labor. White workers drove the trucks, while Black workers loaded the garbage. Although Troy cannot read and does not possess a driver's license, he manages to break through the racial barrier to secure a driver's position by voicing his concerns about the absence of Black drivers. The union, which safeguards his job when he raises complaints, stands as the sole ally for Black workers.

Housing
Due to limited employment opportunities, most Black individuals did not earn enough to own their homes. However, in 1957, the American Dream became a reality for many white families. The post-war economy saw a surge in home ownership for whites. The World War II G.I. Bill enabled returning servicemen to attend college. These better-educated men secured successful careers, leading to a higher standard of living than the previous generation. This resulted in a boom in new home construction, the creation of suburbs, and ultimately, the migration of whites from inner cities. Few Black people could afford the new homes being built across the country. Consequently, many urban Black individuals lived in ghettos similar to the one where Wilson was born. The front yard of the Maxson home is an exception for most Black families, who often resided in large inner-city apartment buildings.

Racism
The 1950s still depicted an America divided by race and economic barriers. Black and white people attended different schools, lived in separate neighborhoods, and received unequal benefits from their citizenship. Before the introduction of forced busing in the 1960s, most Black students attended schools in poorer neighborhoods. Since schools were funded by a complex system of bonds supported by taxes, Black schools (located in areas with lower tax revenues) received less funding. This resulted in fewer resources to pay salaries, maintain buildings, or purchase new equipment. Consequently, students at predominantly Black schools received a substandard education.

Other forms of inequality included voting rights and justice. Black individuals were not encouraged to vote; in fact, many regions actively discouraged Black voters by implementing challenging competency tests as prerequisites. White individuals were not subjected to these exams. Consequently, Black people had minimal influence over political decisions that affected their lives. Additionally, Black people faced unequal treatment under the law. Many were unable to read the contracts they signed or were too intimidated to challenge them.

Moreover, Black people frequently fell victim to discrimination under criminal laws. A lack of knowledge about their legal rights often resulted in prolonged jail time for Black individuals. In some instances, Black people were lynched by violent mobs, occasionally with the tacit approval of law enforcement agencies that turned a blind eye. The civil unrest of the 1960s directly stemmed from these injustices.

Act
A major section within a drama is called an act. In Greek plays, these divisions were marked by the appearance of the chorus and typically consisted of five acts. This structure was prevalent in serious drama from Greek to Roman times and was adopted by Elizabethan playwrights such as William Shakespeare. The five acts represent the sequence of dramatic action: exposition, complication, climax, falling action, and catastrophe. This five-act format persisted until the nineteenth century when playwright Henrik Ibsen (A Doll’s House) began condensing some of the acts. Fences is structured as a two-act play. The first act combines exposition and complication, revealing Troy’s affair and the father-son conflict, as well as the significance of sports in their lives. The climax occurs in the second act, where Troy confesses to fathering a child with his mistress. The father-son tension also peaks in this act when Cory leaves home. The catastrophe unfolds during Troy’s funeral, where Cory comes to terms with his feelings and accepts his father’s flaws.

Setting
The setting of a play refers to the time, place, and cultural context in which the story unfolds. Elements of the setting can include geographic location, physical or mental environments, prevailing cultural attitudes, or the historical period. In Fences, the setting is an urban city in America during 1957. The story spans several months and then leaps forward seven years for the final scene. The action is confined to a single set: the yard of the Maxson home.

Character
A character in a dramatic work is a person whose actions drive the story. Characters can range from simple stereotypes to complex, multi-dimensional individuals and are often defined by their morality and personality traits, such as the rogue or the damsel in distress. "Characterization" refers to the process of crafting a lifelike individual from an author’s imagination. This involves providing the character with distinct traits that shape their behavior in various situations. For example, at the beginning of Fences, Troy appears to embrace his responsibilities, content with his marriage, and committed to providing for his family and caring for Gabriel. However, as the story progresses, it becomes evident that Troy desires to escape these responsibilities, seeking solace in his affair with Alberta, which ultimately jeopardizes his marriage.

Conflict
Conflict represents the central issues to be resolved within a play. It typically occurs between two characters, but it can also arise between an individual and society, as seen in Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Conflict generates tension in a storyline and often acts as the driving force behind the plot. For example, in Fences, a significant conflict exists between Cory's aspiration to play football and his father's unfulfilled dreams of professional sports success. Additionally, there is tension between Troy and his wife when she learns that he has fathered a child with another woman. Furthermore, Troy's frustrations with sports highlight the conflict between a predominantly white professional sports industry and a talented Black man who feels cheated out of his potential success. This conflict symbolizes one of the barriers that prevent Black athletes from accessing opportunities available to white Americans.

Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that equates one thing with another, attributing the qualities of the second to the first. For instance, the fence in the play symbolizes the barriers that confine Troy and Bono to their circumstances. There are also unseen fences between Troy and his family, representing the emotional distances between them. Additionally, the fence serves as a metaphor for the societal constraints that limit Black people's opportunities. In this drama, baseball also acts as a metaphor for Troy's life, where his successes are likened to hitting home runs, and his failures are compared to strikeouts.

Plot
The plot refers to the sequence of events in a story. Typically, plots have a beginning, middle, and end, but they can also consist of a series of interconnected episodes. Essentially, the plot provides a framework for the author to delve into primary themes. Students often confuse plot and theme, but while themes explore underlying ideas, plots simply outline the events that occur. Therefore, the plot of Fences narrates the story of a Black family torn apart by past and present disappointments and anger. However, the themes address family unity, love, and racial intolerance.

1957: Members of the Ku Klux Klan accuse Willie Edwards, a 25-year-old truck driver for an Alabama grocery chain, of speaking inappropriately to a white woman. At gunpoint, they force him to jump to his death from the Tyler Goodwin Bridge into the Alabama River. This tragedy occurs on Edwards's first day on the job.

1985: On May 13, Philadelphia police attempt to remove members of MOVE, an armed Black organization, by dropping a bomb on their house from a helicopter. The resulting fire spreads to nearby homes, killing 11 people and leaving 200 residents homeless.

Today: A Black woman who once relied on public assistance organizes a million-woman rally in Philadelphia. This event, inspired by the 1996 million-man march in Washington D.C., attracts over one million Black women, showcasing their unity and strength.

1957: Entrepreneur Barry Gordy Jr., at 30 years old, founds the Motown Corporation in Detroit, Michigan. With an initial investment of $700, he establishes a recording company that will significantly influence popular music with its "Motown Sound" for over two decades.

1985: "The Color Purple," a film adaptation of Alice Walker's novel, becomes a major box office hit, featuring Whoopi Goldberg and directed by Steven Spielberg.

Today: The film Rosewood, based on true events from 1927, explores the massacre that devastated a small Florida town after a white woman falsely accused a Black man of sexual assault.

1957: Ghana becomes the first African nation south of the Sahara to gain independence.

1985: On July 20, South Africa declares a state of emergency, granting the police and military nearly unlimited authority in Black townships. This move underscores the country's long-standing policy of apartheid, which has relegated Black people to second-class citizenship for decades.

Today: For the first time, South Africa is governed by the Black majority under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years imprisoned under the apartheid regime.

1957: The first U.S. civil rights bill since the Reconstruction era is passed by Congress on September 9. The legislation establishes a Civil Rights Commission and provides federal protections for voting rights, despite significant opposition from many Southerners.

1985: President Reagan signs the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, which imposes spending limits on Congress in an effort to eliminate the federal deficit.

Today: Welfare reform leads to the reduction of services such as food stamps, public assistance, and medical care for many of the nation's poorest citizens. Politicians intend for this reform to push welfare recipients into the workforce. However, many organizations that support the poor view it as a misguided effort that will harm the nation's already disadvantaged children.

SOURCES
Barnes, Clive. "Fiery 'Fences'" in the New York Post, March 27, 1987.

Birdwell, Christine. "Death as a Fastball on the Outside Corner: Fences's Troy Maxson and the American Dream" in Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature, Vol. 8, no. 1, Fall, 1990, pp. 87-96.

Ching, Mel-Ling. "Wrestling against History" in Theater, Vol. 19, no. 3, Summer-Fall, 1988, pp. 70-71.

DeVries, Hilary. "A Song in Search of Itself" in American Theatre, Vol. 3, no. 10, January, 1987, pp. 22-25.

Elam, Harry J., Jr. "Of Angels and Transcendence: An Analysis of Fences by August Wilson and Roosters by Milcha Sanchez-Scott" in Staging Difference: Cultural Pluralism in American Theatre and Drama, edited by Marc Manfort, Peter Lang (New York), 1995, pp. 287-300.

Henderson, Heather. "Building Fences: An Interview with Mary Alice and James Earl Jones" in Theater, Vol. 16, no. 3, Summer-Fall, 1985, pp. 67-70.

Pereira, Kim. "August Wilson" in Reference Guide to American Literature, edited by Jim Kamp, third edition, St. James Press, 1994, pp. 919-921.

Shafer, Yvonne. "Breaking Barriers: August Wilson" in Staging Difference: Cultural Pluralism in American Theatre and Drama, edited by Marc Manfort, Peter Lang, 1995, pp. 267-285.

Wallach, Allan. "Fenced in by a Lifetime of Resentments" in Newsday, March 27, 1987.

Wilson, Edwin. "Wilson's 'Fences' on Broadway" in the Wall Street Journal, March 31, 1987.

FURTHER READING
Chalk, Ocama. Pioneers in Black Sport, Dodd, Mead (New York), 1975.
Chalk provides an in-depth examination of the complex issue of integration in professional sports.

Elam, Harry J. "August Wilson's Women" in May All Your Fences Have Gates, University of Iowa Press, 1994.
Elam, a Drama Professor at Stanford University, explores the role of women in Wilson's plays.

Elkins, Manlyn August. Wilson: A Casebook, Garland (New York), 1994.
This concise volume is a collection of essays discussing Wilson's work within the framework of historical and cultural contexts.

Holway, John. Voices from the Great Black Baseball Leagues, Dodd, Mead, 1975.
This scholarly work investigates the Negro Leagues through player interviews and an analysis of sports journalism.

In Their Own Words: Contemporary American Playwrights, Theatre Communications Group, 1988.
This transcript features a March 1987 interview with Wilson, where he discusses several of his plays.

Nadel, Alan. Essays on the Drama of August Wilson, University of Iowa Press (Iowa City), 1994.
This collection of essays reviews Wilson's dramatic works, including a comprehensive bibliography.

Paige, Leroy. "Satchel." Maybe I'll Pitch Forever, Doubleday, 1962.
Satchel Paige, one of the most renowned players from the Negro Leagues, offers an autobiographical account of his career in this book.

Rogosin, Donn. Invisible Men: Life in Baseball's Negro Leagues, Atheneum (New York), 1983.
This book provides an overview of the social dynamics that led to the decline of the Negro Leagues.

Ruck, Rob. Sandlot Seasons: Sport in Black Pittsburgh, University of Illinois Press (Urbana), 1987.
This nonfiction work delves into the history of sports in Pittsburgh, the city of Wilson's youth and the setting for Fences.

Shannon, Sandra G. "The Ground on Which I Stand" in May All Your Fences Have Gates, University of Iowa Press, 1994.
Shannon holds the position of Associate Professor of English at Howard University. Her essay explores the contributions of African American women in Wilson's plays.