Delilah Jackson (circa 1929 - January 12, 2013) was a cultural historian who specialized in collecting the history of black entertainers in Harlem.
Jackson grew up close to the Apollo Theater in Harlem. [1] She attended school at P.S. 157. [2]
Jackson began to collect the cultural history of Harlem and black entertainers in 1975. [1] She began her collection with recording oral histories of various women who had worked as chorus girls at the Cotton Club. [1] Later, that same year, she created the Black Patti Project which brought programming to former entertainers who were now living in nursing homes. [1] The project went on to work toward collecting oral histories from black artists. [3] Not only was Jackson known for preserving history, she often befriended the artists she met and visited them in nursing homes as they grew older. [4] Her collection of history helped create a historical context for the artists and their work, according to the New York Amsterdam News . [5] Over time, she amassed more 1,000 pieces of media that documented the work of black entertainers in Harlem. [6]
Jackson curated a show at the Smithsonian in 1997 called "Paris, the Jazz Age." [6] Jackson also lectured about entertainers from Harlem at Columbia University, the New School, the Schomburg Center and at the Smithsonian. [7]
She was awarded the 2001 Flo-Bert Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York Committee to Celebrate Tap Dance Day. [6] In 2005, Jackson received the Tap Preservation Award from the American Tap Dance Foundation. [6]
Jackson died in her home on January 12, 2013. [7]
The Apollo Theater is a multi-use theater at 253 West 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Frederick Douglass Boulevard in the Harlem neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is a popular venue for black American performers and is the home of the TV show Showtime at the Apollo. The theater, which has approximately 1,500 seats across three levels, was designed by George Keister in a neoclassical style. The facade and interior of the theater are designated as New York City Landmarks and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The nonprofit Apollo Theater Foundation (ATF) operates the theater, as well as two smaller auditoriums at the Victoria Theater and a recording studio at the Apollo.
Marvel Jackson Cooke was a pioneering American journalist, writer, and civil rights activist. She was the first African-American woman to work at a mainstream white-owned newspaper.
Bill Robinson, nicknamed Bojangles, was an American tap dancer, actor, and singer, the best known and the most highly paid African-American entertainer in the United States during the first half of the 20th century. His long career mirrored changes in American entertainment tastes and technology. His career began in the age of minstrel shows and moved to vaudeville, Broadway theatre, the recording industry, Hollywood films, radio, and television.
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The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a research library of the New York Public Library (NYPL) and an archive repository for information on people of African descent worldwide. Located at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard between West 135th and 136th Streets in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, it has, almost from its inception, been an integral part of the Harlem community. It is named for Afro-Puerto Rican scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg.
Frances E. Nealy was an American actress and dancer. She starred in Harold Robbins' 79 Park Avenue.
The Harlem shake is a style of hip-hop dance and is characterized by jerky arm and shoulder movements in time to music. The dance was created by Harlem resident Al B. in 1981; the dance was initially called "The Albee" or "The Al. B.". As indicated by the name, it is associated with the predominantly African-American neighborhood of Harlem, in New York City. The dance became known as the Harlem Shake as its prominence grew beyond the neighborhood. In 2001 G. Dep's music video for the song "Let's Get It" introduced the dance to the mainstream.
Queen Mother Moore was an African-American civil rights leader and a black nationalist who was friends with such civil rights leaders as Marcus Garvey, Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela, Rosa Parks, and Jesse Jackson. She was a figure in the American Civil Rights Movement and a founder of the Republic of New Afrika. Dr. Delois Blakely was her assistant for 20 years. Blakely was later enstooled in Ghana as a Nana.
Augusta Savage was an American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance. She was also a teacher whose studio was important to the careers of a generation of artists who would become nationally known. She worked for equal rights for African Americans in the arts.
The Harlem Cultural Festival was a series of events, mainly music concerts, held annually in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, between 1967 and 1969 which celebrated African American music and culture and promoted Black pride. The most successful series of concerts, in 1969, became known informally as Black Woodstock, and is presented in the 2021 documentary film Summer of Soul.
Charles “Cookie” Cook was a tap dancer who performed in the heyday of tap through the 1980s, and was a founding member of the Copasetics. He was the dance partner of Ernest “Brownie” Brown, with whom he performed from the days of vaudeville into the 1960s. They performed in film, such as Dorothy Dandridge 1942 “soundie” Cow Cow Boogie, on Broadway in the 1948 musical Kiss Me, Kate, twice at the Newport Jazz Festival, as well in other acts, including “Garbage and His Two Cans” in which they played the garbage cans. He headlined venues including New York's Palace, the Apollo, Radio City Music Hall, Cotton Club, and London Palladium. Quoted as saying “if you can walk, you can dance,” Cook was one of the most influential tap masters and crucial in passing on the tap tradition to future generations.
The Silver Belles were an American female tap dance troupe established in Harlem, New York City.
Mable Lee, sometimes spelled Mabel Lee, was an American jazz tap dancer, singer, and entertainer. Lee appeared on Broadway, at the Apollo Theater, and was known as "Queen of the Soundies" due to her numerous performances in the films.
Leonard Harper was a producer, stager, and choreographer in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and 1930s.
Fannie Emma Pennington was an American activist, organizer, and fundraising coordinator for U.S. Congressional Representative (Harlem) Adam Clayton Powell Jr.'s Isaac Democratic Club and the Abyssinian Baptist Church A.C.P. Overseas Club. She was also a member of the New York City Board of Elections and the Frederick E. Samuel Community Democratic Club, the Satellite Club, the Courtesy Guild, the Progressive Ladies Usher Board of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, the ABC Welcome and Hospitality Committee. She was an official representative of the Barmaid Charity Organization. She was a New York leader of the bus organizing efforts in 1963 for the March on Washington.
Elia Alba (1962) was born in Brooklyn, New York. She is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Queens, New York. Alba's ongoing project The Supper Club depicts contemporary artists of color in portraits, and presents dinners where a diverse array of artists, curators, historians and collectors address topics related to people of color and to women.
Juanita Boisseau, also known as Juanita Boisseau Ramseur, was an American dancer. She is best known for starring at the world famous jazz club Cotton Club in New York.
Ludie Olivia Jones was an American dancer. Jones was part of the Harlem Renaissance and started tap dancing at an early age. She had an early career that spanned the 1930s to the 1950s and was revived in the 1980s. Jones continued to dance and teach tap dance well into her later years.
Alma Vessells John was an American nurse, newsletter writer, radio and television personality, and civil rights activist. Born in Philadelphia in 1906, she moved to New York to take nursing classes after graduating from high school. She completed her nursing training at Harlem Hospital School of Nursing in 1929 and worked for two years as a nurse before being promoted to the director of the educational and recreational programs at Harlem Hospital. After being fired for trying to unionize nurses in 1938, she became the director of the Upper Manhattan YWCA School for Practical Nurses, the first African American to serve as director of a school of nursing in the state of New York.. In 1944, John became a lecturer and consultant with the National Nursing Council for War Service, serving until the war ended, and was the last director of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses from 1946 until it dissolved in 1951. Her position at both organizations was to expand nursing opportunities for black women and integrate black nurses throughout the nation into the health care system.