The Free Southern Theater was a part of the emerging Black Theatre Movement and also closely allied with the civil rights movement—O'Neal and Derby were also directors of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
The founders sought to introduce free theater to the South, both as a voice for social protest, and to emphasize positive aspects of African-American culture.
"[5] The Free Southern Theater was formed in September 1963 when Gilbert Moses and John O'Neal met in Mississippi while working with the civil rights movement.
[6] Under financial duress and hoping to draw on a larger middle class black population, the troupe moved to New Orleans in 1965[9] where they purchased an office space and gathered a board of directors.
[6] In 1966 Moses, Schechner, and O'Neal left, and the company was taken over by African-American poet and writer Thomas Dent assisted by Val Ferdinand (later known as Kalamu ya Salaam).
[11] They adapted the play In White America by Martin Duberman to depict the murders of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) field workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman, killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by the Ku Klux Klan.
[15] In addition to John O'Neal and Gilbert Moses, well known actors who appeared in FST productions included Roscoe Orman,[1] and Denise Nicholas.
As a student at Oberlin College, Moses studied for a year at the Sorbonne in Paris before leaving school to join the civil rights movement.
Reflecting on a 1972 New York Times interview with Moses, Gussow observes how he "called for a deeper investigation of the lives of black people in the United States".
From an early age, Derby expressed strong interest in community activism and civil rights and joined a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) youth group in the Bronx.
In 1990, Derby joined the faculty of Georgia State University and served as the founding Director of the Office of African American Student Services and Programs, as well as, Adjunct Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology.
Her documentary photographs are known to "depict the life of struggling Americans who defied the post-emancipation status quo brought about by political, economic, social and cultural domination and exploitation".
[19] Like fellow FST founder, Doris Derby, John O'Neal worked for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Mississippi as a field director.
The play features the character Junebug Jabbo Jones, "created by the SNCC members to represent and symbolize the wit and wisdom of common folk".