I chose Eugene O’Neill, one of the most famous American playwrights, as the topic for my thesis since I have always been fascinated by his dramas ever since my first exposure to his plays. I found him the most intriguing and most fascinating of all the playwrights I encountered during my five years at the University of Debrecen. He experimented with so many techniques and topics that reading his dramas would always remain compulsory for everyone who is interested in American literature, and drama, particularly. Of all his themes I chose the racial discourse as a relevant focus of analysis, because I found that his plays dealing with it remained largely neglected and unread by many, even if the Negro problem never ceased to be actual and serious. Especially his earlier one-act Negro plays are unknown and the two later works selected for discussion here are rarely staged. However, all of his plays, including the below detailed Negro plays are essential in understanding the evolution which O’Neill’s art went through. In addition, he wrote these plays before or at the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance when the representation of the Negroes was rethought and redrawn. The gradual alteration and development in O’Neill’s Negro plays mirrors how a white playwright’s perception of the blacks changed during the Jazz Age.