Court Martial at Fort Devens

Four WACs are denied the jobs for which they've been trained simply because of the color of their skin. Their fight to win what was promised to them by the U.S. Army takes them on a journey that goes through a court martial for treason and all the way to the White House.

Winner of 5 Audelco Awards including best playwright!

This award-winning play by Jeffrey Sweet tells the true story of two women who are willing to risk being wrongly condemned as traitors to stand up for their rights.

It’s 1944 and young black WACs are trained as medical technicians, then denied those jobs by a racist Colonel. Two of those women refuse to go to work as cleaners and are tried for treason. Helped by an young black lawyer who has never tried a court martial, they face an uphill climb for justice. A climb that eventually reaches all the way to the White House.

Using historical records and actual trial transcripts, Jeffrey Sweet gives us an inspiring story that reminds us how far we’ve come in solving our country’s race problem and how far we still have to go.

This staged reading is free and open to the public. It is in collaboration with Beacon Theater Productions. For more information visit their website at https://www.beacontheatreproductions.org/