MARGARET BONDS, LOVE, AND RACISM:

MIDTOWN AFFAIR AND MIST OVER MANHATTAN (1958)

Margaret Bonds was immersed in the theater from her youth to the very end of her life. She frequently attended plays and wrote about them; she wrote music for plays; she wrote music for musicals – from the fourteen-number incidental music for the Federal Theater Project’s Romey and Julie (1936) to her twenty-two number musical Bitter Laurel, based on the life of Elizabeth Keckley (1818-1907) (1968-69); and the last three and a half years of her life were spent working as Music Director of the Repertory Theatre Company at the Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center.

 And she co-authored at least three plays and musicals – Cover to Cover (undated, probably early 1940s), Packaged in Paris (undated, probably late 1940s), and the important but obscure work that occasions this post: Midtown Affair (1958). [1]

Set in Bonds's adopted and beloved home city of New York, where she lived from October 1939 to November 1967, Midtown Affair was co-authored with her friend and frequent collaborator Roger B. Chaney (1908-1991). Typically for Bonds, it went through several major revisions (here referred to as Books A, B, and C). It was evidently performed in New York early in 1958, for Bonds wrote to Langston Hughes on February 7 of that year asking whether he had seen the announcement about it in the Times. I’ve been unable to find that announcement, but here’s what she wrote to Hughes:

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Langston Hughes Papers (shelfmark JWJ MSS 26 Box 16, folder 372)

For all its obscurity, Midtown Affair in many ways articulates in words and drama what Bonds is better known for expressing in tones – for in all three versions, the plot is driven by conflicts of social class and lifestyle, detailing the development of a love relationship between a man and woman who come from what Book B calls “widely different worlds.” In the version that seems to be the latest (Book C), these “widely different worlds” are delineated first and foremost by race: the powerful man is white and the highly intelligent and attractive woman is Black.

That last version is the one that concerns me here. Space is insufficient to say much about it, but as we near the end of Black History Month 2026 (with the caveat that every month is Black History Month and February is just a reminder), it seems appropriate to use this space to flesh out our understanding of Margaret Bonds’s careerlong activism a bit – to see that she committed herself to the cause of racial justice not only in the genres of her work that are usually discussed (her music -- especially art song, spiritual, choral music, and the Montgomery Variations), but also in a pervasive but paradoxically little-explored facet of her creativity: her stage work.

To get started, let me introduce you to the main characters in Midtown Affair. Then I'll share Bonds’s synopsis of the final scene.

The Characters:

• Paul Marsland, white, scion of a New York socialite family and a powerful internationally connected stockbroker. He is 44, a childless widower.

• Venita Johnson: African American, fluent in French; Marsland’s confidential secretary. She is 27, “highly attractive physically,” and divorced, with a 5-year-old son (Tony).

• Ernie Johnson: Venita’s brother, 32, a chain-smoking bachelor. According to Book C, he is “an inveterate but unskillful gambler; and his frequent losing streaks are often punctuated by concomitant drunkenness. He is of limited education, inclined towards loudness, and is highly volatile.” The book describes him as “violently anti-white” owing to numerous street fights with whites and the fact that the only woman he ever loved, who was white, ultimately gave in to her family’s “strenuous” objections to her marrying him. He is also a loving uncle to Tony.

• Sarah Johnson, mother of Venita and Ernie, a “drab little woman” in her late fifties “made old before her time by early widowhood, hard work, the struggle to maintain a clean ‘rearing’ atmosphere for her children, and the endless fight to make ends meet.”

The first part of Midtown Affair traces the development of Paul’s and Benita’s romance, leading to their decision to marry; the couple sings Mist over Manhattan toward the end of these events. The couple is happy at having transcended the barriers they face, and Sarah is relieved and very happy for her daughter. But she is worried about Ernie’s response to the news. With good reason -- for when Sarah tells Ernie, his response is: “IF HE THINKS HE CAN GET AWAY WITH THAT WITH MY SISTER I’LL KILL HIM! HE’S LIKE ALL WHITE MEN WITH A GOOD-LOOKING COLORED GIRL, JUST LOOKING FOR A GOOD LAY!” [Capitals are original to the script.]

That is the context for the final scene (Scene 3). That scene unfolds as follows:

Such is the aftermath of the romantic love expressed in Bonds’s Mist over Manhattan. After that scene, the couple’s future will forevermore be tarnished by Venita’s having to kill her brother, Sarah’s knowledge that her daughter killed her son, and 5-year-old Tony’s loss of an adoring uncle. But to avoid ending this post on such a tragic note, let me give you the lyric of the song that precedes this scene – the words of a happy couple who have transcended the obstacles of race and class that they faced, looking toward a bright future in which love wins out over racism:  

Mist over Manhattan will be published by ClarNan Editions on March 3, 2026. Its first scheduled performance will be given by the Milwaukee High School for the Arts Jazz Vocal Ensemble, winner of fourteen Downbeat awards since 2014, on May 15, 2026.

[1] For a survey of Margaret Bonds’s stage output, see John Michael Cooper, Margaret Bonds (New York: Oxford University Press, 2025), 286-90 and passim.