Continuing WashU’s long tradition in the performing arts, the Center for Race, Ethnicity & Equity presents a performance of Damien Sneed and Karen Chilton’s chamber opera, The Tongue & The Lash. Based on an imagined conversation between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley, Jr. after their infamous 1965 Cambridge Union debate, Sneed and Chilton’s work previously played at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in 2021.

The Belonging in Opera exhibition offers an array of historical material drawn from the Olin, Gaylord, and St. Louis Public libraries, and inspired by this convergence of forces, in support of the spring performance of The Tongue & The Lash.

This exhibition was organized by James Baldwin Review—Justin A. Joyce & Kyle Proehl, with research assistance by Matthew Johnson.