Plot Summary
Color Struck opens on a train in 1900, with members of the black community from Jacksonville going to a cakewalk competition in St. Augustine. Hurston specifies that the first scene takes place "inside a 'Jim Crow' railway coach. With lots of bustle, John and Emmaline arrive at the train just on time. Emmaline made John take the last coach, because she felt he was flirting with Effie, a lighter-skinned black woman.
The play's title focuses on colorism, the idea that people in the black community were judged based on the hue of their skin. Emma is terrified that John will leave her for a lighter-skinned woman, and is very jealous: Emma says, "I loves you so hard, John, and jealous love is the only kind I got."
At the dance hall, everyone eats their picnic lunches, and Effie offers John a piece of pie. He accepts, though he knows it will upset Emma. Emma refuses to dance the cakewalk with him, even though they are favoured to win the competition. John instead dances the cakewalk with Effie, and they win the prize.
Twenty years pass, and we rejoin Emma in "a one-room shack in an alley." Her daughter, who we later learn is named Lou Lillian, is in bed, feverishly ill. John knocks on the door, and tells her he missed her. He had been married, but his wife died, and he has come to marry Emma now. Emma is thrilled, but wary. John looks forward to raising Lou Lillian as his own, and having a family. Lou Lillian is very sick, and John sends Emma for a doctor. Emma will not go to a "colored doctor," and eventually goes to bring the white doctor. As she is about to leave, she comes back and sees John ministering to Lou Lillian. Emma assumes that John is only being nice to Lou Lillian because she is half-white. In a rage, Emma attacks John. John leaves, and the doctor arrives. The doctor is too late, and Emma's daughter is dead. The doctor remonstrates Emma for not having come earlier, an hour would have made all the difference. As the doctor leaves, Emma is left on stage in a rocking chair, staring at the door, "A dry sob now and then."
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