Who is Delbert in the play, The Exonerated?

Delbert is a sixty-year-old African American man, a radical, and a poet. According the authors' character notes, "His whole personality is like an old soul song: smooth, mellow, and with an underlying rhythm that never lets up." Delbert is a serious, philosophical man who thinks deeply about the issues facing American society, such as racism. He dropped out of a seminary and was hitchhiking across Texas, getting rides from white people and not experiencing any trouble at all until he was arrested and wrongly convicted of a murder and rape that took place in Florida.

Delbert is based on the real life Delbert Tibbs.