Langston Hughess play Mulatto: A Tragedy of the Deep South, opens on Colonel Thomas Norwood's Georgia plantation.

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Langston Hughes's play Mulatto: A Tragedy of the Deep South, opens on Colonel Thomas Norwood's Georgia plantation. We learn his wife has died, and Norwood lives on the plantation with Cora, his black housewife, and their mulatto children. Several of their children are light skinned enough to pass as white. In fact, his oldest girls are going to school to learn typing although Norwood thinks they are learning cooking and sewing. They are secretly preparing for more pleasant and lucrative lives as educated light-skinned negroes who can pass as white than intending to admit their entire heritage. However, Robert, one of Norwood's mulatto sons, begins thinking of himself as "Mr. Norwood" and more important than he should during this time period. He is causing problems at the post office and calling himself Norwood's son in public, causing problems for Norwood and for all the slaves on the plantation.

In Act 2, scene 1 Robert has taken his sister Sallie to the train to go to school. Norwood has asked Cora to send Robert to him when he returns. Cora gets Robert to agree with anything Norwood says to him, which Robert says he will unless Norwood tries