The text was first published in 1972, in a volume called Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays of Lorraine Hansberry,[5] which also includes The Drinking Gourd and What Use are Flowers?.
She attributed her interest in colonialism as beginning when she watched newsreel footage of the Italian conquest of Ethiopia, and her mother telling her that the Pope had ordained the invasion.
She took what would later become Act I scene iii to the Actors Studio Writer's Workshop where, encouraged by the response, she witnessed the only performance of Les Blancs to happen in her lifetime.
Written as part of the Black Arts Movement, Les Blancs grapples with the ideas of pan-Africanism and the global nature of colonialism seen in many of the other works coming out at the time.
Their oldest brother Abioseh Matoseh returns to the village from a Catholic educational institution, St Cyprian's, wearing clerical garb, and reveals that he is in the process of being ordained as a priest.
Charlie is attempting to convince Dr. Gotterling to join him for a walk when Major Rice arrives and tells them of a peaceful white family nearby that has just been murdered by terrorists.
Tshembe arrives to renew his friendship with Madame Neilsen, but Major Rice calls him a "kaffir" before he identifies himself, and afterwards searches him for the tattoo sign of the terrorist group.
Tshembe confronts his confused, directionless, and misguided biracial teenage half-brother Eric about wearing makeup given to him by Dr. DeKoven and "turning into a white woman", and about his excessive drinking.
Tshembe learns that Peter (who goes by his birth name Ntali in the village), the African longtime head servant at the medical mission, is part of the terrorist group.
When Tshembe appears Abioseh appeals to him as an upright, educated African like himself to wait till "the terror" has passed or is suppressed so that the two of them and others like them can step in afterwards and be peaceful leaders.
He recounts that Reverend Neilsen had poured scorn on the villagers' proposal and petition for proportionate native representation in the legislature, which they had planned to take to the government in the capital.
The Major announces that Reverend Neilsen has been killed in a terrorist raid and that he has called in fresh troops, helicopters, jets, and mechanized units for a new coordinated military offensive.
He calls for Peter and, after humiliating him by making him grovel and praise white rule, he shoots and kills him when upon being confronted he admits to cutting the flare system at the mission compound.
After he leaves, Dr. DeKoven tells Charlie that Major Rice is Eric's father, having raped Tshembe's and Abioseh's mother Aquah, who died in childbirth; he adds, "they say, from shame".
Ngago calls the Kwi people together and describes the three centuries of murders, massacres, rapes, land grabs, oppression, and imprisonment committed by white colonizers.
[11] The new text was developed by Farber, dramaturg Drew Lichtenburg, and Nemiroff's stepdaughter Joi Gresham, director and trustee of the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust.
[6][7] A film of the production was made available to watch for free online for one week on YouTube in July 2020 as part of the National Theatre at Home project during COVID-19 lockdown.