“Parade” speaks to historical antisemitism and mob violence, and it forces us to see how antisemitism and racism are inextricably linked, underscoring how the pursuit of justice fails in a broken judicial system. The only other person the police considered making a suspect in the murder was a Black man, the night watchman of the pencil factory. In the show, the prosecutor on the case has been instructed to deliver a quick conviction, and he casually states that hanging a Black man “ain’t enough this time. We gotta do better.” He knows that pinning the crime on a Jewish man will cast the outcome in a different light than pinning it on a Black man: He can knock the Jewish man down a peg, whereas the Black man’s social status has no farther to fall. A Black woman and a Jewish woman, undone by the same system, having a picnic.

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Persons: I’m, Lucille, Leo, Minnie — Minola McKnight, Danielle Lee Greaves —, Franks ’ Black, She’s, Minnie, ”, Michael Arden Organizations: Broadway