Toward Bright Tomorrows: World Youth Unites for Peace and Freedom

Roosevelt [Douglas Turner] Ward

New York: Challenge, 1950. Saddle-stapled in photographic wraps. 22 pp. 5 ½ x 8 ½ in.

Early political pamphlet by the young communist organizer who would become one of the central, driving forces of the Black Theater movement in the United States.

A political organizer and radical from an early age, Ward moved to New York in 1948, and became immersed in the radical political scene in Harlem, writing for The Daily Worker, and studying as an actor. Around this time, he took on the name “Douglas Turner” to honor Nat Turner and Frederick Douglass. He served as understudy to Sidney Poitier in A Raisin in the Sun, and wrote and directed the double bill Happy Ending / Day of Absence. With funding from the Ford Foundation, Ward co-founded the Negro Ensemble Company in 1967 and served as the Creative Director, running the day-to-day operations for the next several decades. His archives now reside at Emory and Harvard.