The Backdrop—1920s–1940s

Abstract

This book is about the urge, the desire—the need—to dance, against all odds. It begins as a story of elite performance in humble places, of growing up black in the United States of America at a time when racial segregation was so potent that the black poor, working class, and middle class lived together in the same neighborhoods and had limited access to, or were deprived of, the same services. But it is also the story of one community whose black elite’s ceremonial, festive, and charitable traditions outstripped those of other communities, black and white. Keep in mind that such a tradition arose even though the black bourgeoisie (and a small community of aristocrats of color) lacked the financial means to compete with whites of similar rank and station. The economics of discrimination meant that a typical black person might work for a white or black employer in a menial position such as a janitor, laundress, or seasonal farm worker. A number of working-class service positions in the white world—including sleeping car porter, caterer to white clientele, or maid or butler to a wealthy family—carried middle class status in the black community, despite the low wages accorded them. (On the job market in the white world, blacks were systematically paid less than whites employed in the same positions and performing identical labor.) Within the black community, middle-class status came from small business occupations such as dressmaker, tailor, carpenter, mortician, milliner, or owner of a beauty shop or barbershop. In general, white-collar positions in the white world—secretaries, salespersons, and such—were off limits to blacks.1