Beneath the tributes and historical retrospectives that will mark America’s 250th anniversary lies a more urgent question: Whose stories will shape that narrative?
From book bans to curriculum battles to declining support for the arts, we are witnessing a narrowing of what is considered essential and who gets to interpret it. The classical canon sits squarely in that tension.
For generations, works by Sophocles, Shakespeare, and other canonical playwrights have been treated as universal and fixed, even as access to them and representation in them have remained limited. As America turns 250, the question is not only what has been preserved, but who has been centered in that preservation and who has had the authority to tell these stories.
That question feels particularly relevant in Harlem.
For more than a century, Harlem has been one of the nation’s great engines of cultural and intellectual life. Long before conversations about representation became commonplace, Harlem’s artists, writers, musicians, activists, and institutions were expanding the boundaries of who belonged in the American story. The Harlem Renaissance did more than produce extraordinary art: It challenged the nation to see Black life, Black creativity, and Black humanity as central to its identity.
That work did not end with one movement or one generation. It continues every time artists create work that expands our understanding of who we are and what America can be.
That is what makes the work of the Classical Theatre of Harlem especially resonant in this moment. This summer, the company will stage “Othello” in Marcus Garvey Park as part of its Uptown Shakespeare in the Park series, continuing a beloved tradition of presenting free, world-class classical theater in the heart of Harlem, offering a shared cultural experience that places the canon directly in conversation with the community.
Othello is celebrated for his accomplishments, trusted with immense responsibility, and welcomed when his talents are needed. Yet, beneath that acceptance lies a more fragile reality. His place in the society he serves is never fully secure. His value is conditional. His belongings are constantly subject to scrutiny.
More than 400 years after Shakespeare wrote the play, that tension remains recognizable. That is one reason “Othello” continues to resonate so deeply with audiences. The play asks difficult questions about identity, power, perception, and exclusion. It explores what happens when individuals are asked to navigate institutions that benefit from their contributions while withholding full acceptance. Those questions have echoed throughout American history and continue to shape conversations about leadership, citizenship, and opportunity today.
To be clear, reclaiming the canon is not about novelty. It is about ownership.
It is about recognizing these works as living texts that can reflect the full range of people who engage with them. When Black artists take up the canon, we do more than perform it. We expand it. We bring cultural experiences, perspectives, rhythms, and interpretations that reveal dimensions of these works that might otherwise remain unseen.
Too often, conversations about representation focus solely on access. Access matters, but the larger question is authorship. Who gets to interpret? Who gets to shape meaning? Who gets to decide what these works say to a modern audience?
Those questions are not separate from the broader conversations happening across the country about education, history, and public memory. They are part of the same debate.
The battle over books is ultimately a battle over stories. The debate over curriculum is ultimately about whose experiences matter. The same is true in the arts.
When communities fight to preserve their history, tell their stories, and see themselves reflected in cultural institutions, they are engaging in the same project that generations before them undertook: expanding the American narrative.
That is why I think of this work as — to quote John Lewis — “good trouble.” Not because it seeks to discard tradition, but because it challenges the assumption that tradition belongs to only a select few.
The history of Black America is filled with people who expanded institutions by insisting on their participation. They integrated schools, transformed universities, entered professions once closed to them, and reshaped cultural spaces never intended to welcome them. They challenged the nation to become more inclusive, more democratic, and more honest about itself.
The arts are no different.
When Black artists claim ownership of Shakespeare, we are not entering someone else’s conversation. We are helping to define it. In Harlem, where these performances take place in public spaces, that evolution is especially visible. The canon is not positioned above the community but embedded in it, allowing families, longtime residents, students, and first-time theatergoers to engage with these works on their own terms. What once felt distant becomes accessible. What once seemed reserved for a few becomes shared with many.
Cultural institutions have an opportunity and a responsibility to help shape a fuller national narrative. Honoring the past does not require preserving it unchanged but expanding it. It requires creating space for voices and perspectives that have always been present, even when not always centered.
America remains a work in progress. The nation’s story has never belonged solely to its founders, its politicians, or its most powerful institutions. It has also belonged to the artists, storytellers, and communities that challenged the country to see itself more fully.
That work is not separate from democracy. It is part of democracy.
Ty Jones is the producing artistic director of Classical Theatre of Harlem, where he leads the organization’s artistic vision and has helped establish it as a national leader in reimagining the classical canon through a Black cultural lens.
