Knowing that history is often used as an excuse to exclude women, Cornelia Weiss (a former US military colonel) excavates erased history while proactively seeking to create transformative policies and practices. Cathay Williams is her first foray into the world of writing for theater. The opinions and views expressed are her personal views and are not intended to represent in whole or in part the opinions of the US government, military, or any of its components.
ABOUT THE MONOLOGUE
In February 2025, the current US military administration ordered the removal of “DEI” materials. The order resulted in history deleted, from Tuskegee airmen to the first female fighter pilot General Jennie Leavitt. (For an incomplete listing of known erased materials, see smh-hq.org/archivedresources.html.) The present erasure highlights that past military administrations erased the history of military service by Black women through a strategy of omission: electing to not task military-funded historians to excavate, write, and publish histories of Black women. Cornelia Weiss originally wrote this piece in 2014 for Arena Stage’s “Our War” (Civil War) monologue competition. While Arena Stage did not select it, current visible efforts to honor Cathay Williams include a 2016 statue at the Richard Allen Cultural Center and Museum in Leavenworth, Kansas (womenofthe688th.org/monuments) and reenactments by storyteller Donna Madison (910hcav.org/about-us-2/photo-gallery/).
Links to examples of Cornelia Weiss’ work available online:
- 2023 “Civil Dispute Resolution: An Ignored Winning Strategy for Afghanistan,” Military Review (January/February edition), Awarded third prize: 2022 General William E. DePuy Special Topics Writing Competition on “Insights from Two Decades in Afghanistan https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/January-February-2023/Weiss/
- 2022 Review of Sara Bertotti, Gina Heathcote, Emily Jones, and Sheri Labenski
- “The Law of War and Peace: A Gender Analysis, Volume One,” Journal of Military Learning, 89-91
- Banned/removed/erased in 2025 under the current U.S. Secretary of Defense/War women/gender policies; see removed/erased “update” version at https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/journal-of-military-learning/PDFs/October-2022/update/JML-Oct-22-Book-update.pdf; for original Table of Contents, see Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org/web/20230608090445/https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/journal-of-military-learning/PDFs/October-2022/JML-Oct-2022-TOC-UA.pdf and for review, see Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org/web/20221017120500/https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/journal-of-militar-learning/PDFs/October-2022/Weiss.pdf
- 2022 “Gender in International Law Syllabi,” European Journal of International Law, Volume 33, Issue 1, 1-2, ejil.org/pdfs/33/1/3245.pdf
- 2021 “Creating UNSCR 1325: Women Who Served as Initiators, Drafters, and Strategists” in Rebecca Adami and Dan Plesch (eds.), Women and the UN: A New History of International Human Rights, Routledge, https://taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003036708-9/creating-unscr-1325-cornelia-weiss
- 2021 “Twenty Years After UNSCR 1325: Equal Access to Military Education in the Western Hemisphere?” (with Eva María Rey Pinto), Revista Científica Estudios en Seguridad y Defensa, 15(30) 303-325, https://doi.org/10.25062/1900-8325.280
- 2020 “The Nineteenth Amendment and the U.S. ‘Women's Emancipation Policy’ in Post-World War II Occupied Japan: Going Beyond Suffrage,” Akron Law Review: Vol. 53: Iss. 2, Article 4, https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/akronlawreview/vol53/iss2/4/
- 2020 “Discrimination Against Women, Rule of Law and Culture of Peace: Colombia’s ‘Peace’ Agreement,” The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs Vol 44:1 Winter 2020, 97-120, https://jstor.org/stable/48599282
- 2020 “The State of Civil-Military Relations Education: Falling Short?” Hemisferio Vol 6, https://publications.iadc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/hemisferio/volume6/Civ_Mil_Weiss_22-July.pdf
- 2015 “Dismantling the arguments against women in combat,” The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com/opinion/dismantling-the-arguments-against-women-in-combat/2015/12/16/98071b8a-a349-11e5-8318-bd8caed8c588_story.html
- 2012 “Respecting Human Rights and the Rule of Law: The New Zealand Defence Force,” Ian Axford (New Zealand) Fellowship in Public Policy, http://www.fulbright.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/axford-weiss.pdf
If you enjoy a monologue published in the BLACK WOMAN GENIUS project, we encourage you to reach out to the playwright to tell them so. If the playwright has not included an email address or website, let us know at info@nycplaywrights.org and we'll pass along your message.
EXCERPT FROM MY NAME IS CATHAY WILLIAMS: THE RIGHT AND TRUTHFUL GENIUS NARRATIVE OF CATHAY WILLIAMS (1844–1892)
~ Excerpt published by permission, all rights held by the playwright.
CATHAY
When the Civil War ended, there was not work for all the freed people. The only living I knew was military. The military prohibited women from serving. But the military paid more for a Black male cook than a Black female cook was ever paid. So I disguised myself as a man and became a Buffalo Soldier in the 38th US Infantry, Company A. Only thing was, my fellow soldiers knew me by the name of William Cathay. Yep, I enlisted in the military as a man. Strange as it sounds, the military, which was fighting for the end of discrimination, discriminated against women. The Regulations forbade the enlistment of women. Does the military still discriminate against women?