Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the source text’s treatment of racism.

The impact of cyclical violence on Black American men is one of this play’s most important and overt themes, and it connects this installment of Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle to several others. The early plays in the series examine the kinds of racism experienced by Black Americans in the early years of emancipation, while the later plays explore the continued impact of racist policies on majority-Black neighborhoods like Pittsburgh’s Hill District. King Hedley II in particular shows how Black men and boys are caught in a cycle of violence that is difficult to escape.

King has been caught in this cycle from a young age. In one scene he recalls being branded a troublemaker by his teachers in part because of an incident in which he was not allowed to go to the bathroom. This label followed him throughout his youth and adolescence, and he found himself anticipating and reacting to discrimination even before it happened. He felt he constantly had to fight to protect his rights, and he developed the idea that violence was an effective problem-solving technique. He also became fixated on the idea of protecting his honor through self-defense, retribution, and violence.