Celebrating Black History Month With Books About Performing Artists

by Imani Perry

Imani Perry, scholar and author of notable books like South to America, May We Forever Stand, expertly explores 20th-century American culture through the lens of Lorraine Hansberry—her works, her politics, and her relationships. Hansberry’s profound work transcended the genre as A Raisin in the Sun put her on the map as one of the most important playwrights in the history of the American theater. Even before she wrote A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry finessed her storytelling prowess as a journalist and poet, and ignited her passion for justice through political activity. Her good friend Nina Simone wrote the song “Young, Gifted, and Black” about Hansberry, based on Hansberry’s autobiographical play of the same title. Perry tells the tale of their friendship, along with Hansberry’s friendship with famed author and thinker James Baldwin. A great biography for those not only interested in the life of the playwright, who died young at the age of 34, but also interested in understanding the cultural impact of Hansberry’s work on the American theater, and American culture at large. 

Perry’s newest book, Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People, is the February pick for our Get Lit! Book Club in partnership with WNYC. Find out more.

by Donald Bogle

Donald Bogle, the premiere expert historian on the Black experience during the Golden Age of Hollywood, explores Dandridge’s short life with honesty and curiosity. Dandridge, who died at the young age of 42, experienced trauma personally and professionally. Starting as a child star with her sister in a routine called the Wonder Kids, Dandridge grew into the nightclub circuit, integrating the venue-type all over the country. She became a household name after her Oscar nomination (the first Black woman to be nominated in the category for Best Actress) for her performance in the classic film Carmen Jones.Through Dandridge’s artistic story, Bogle unpacks the impact Dandridge had on film and music in the 20th century.

by Kenny Leon

Kenny Leon, a prolific Black theater director and producer, took time out of his busy schedule of helming plays that uplift the Black community to impart some wisdom from his grandmother: to "take you wherever you go". His memoir is centered on his relationship with his grandmother, and explores his upbringing at the encouragement of the women in his life. Leon unpacks his early career as a struggling actor, and brings lessons learned in that time to his position as artistic director of the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia. Leon's career exploded after his departure from the Alliance Theatre Company in 2000. He then started the production company True Colors, and went on to direct two revivals of A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway, as well as Broadway premieres of Gem of the Ocean, Holler If Ya Hear Me, and A Soldier's Play.

by Mel Watkins

Lincoln Perry’s “Stepin Fetchit” vaudeville character is based on a derogatory stereotype. Perry built a successful theatrical career on the foundation of this caricature, prompting Watkins to ask, was Perry a genius who knew how to harness his audience’s racism into a long game? Was there a subversive intent behind his routine? When Perry broke into Hollywood, he became a champion for equal pay to his white-passing costars like Will Rogers, earning him the title of first Black millionaire of Hollywood, but his extravagance at that period in his life drew criticism from the Black human rights activists at the time. An untold story of an often misunderstood entertainer.

by Peggy and Murray Schwartz

Pearl Primus blazed onto the dance scene in 1943 with stunning works that incorporated social and racial protest into a dance aesthetic. In The Dance Claimed Me, Peggy and Murray Schwartz, friends and colleagues of Primus, offer an intimate perspective on her life and explore her influences on American culture, dance, and education. They trace Primus's path from her childhood in Port of Spain, Trinidad, through her rise as an influential international dancer, an early member of the New Dance Group (whose motto was "dance is a weapon"), and as a pioneer in dance anthropology. She engendered controversy in both her private and professional lives, marrying a white Jewish man during a time of segregation and challenging Black intellectuals who opposed the "primitive" in her choreography. Her political protests and mixed-race tours in the South triggered an FBI investigation, even as she was celebrated by dance critics and by contemporaries like Langston Hughes. For The Dance Claimed Me, the Schwartzes interviewed more than 100 of Primus's family members, friends, and fellow artists, as well as other individuals to create a vivid portrayal of a life filled with passion, drama, determination, fearlessness, and brilliance.

by Karen Valby

The forgotten story of a pioneering group of five Black ballerinas, the first principals in the Dance Theatre of Harlem, who traveled the world as highly celebrated stars in their field and whose legacy was erased from history until now. At the height of the civil rights movement, Lydia Abarça was a Black prima ballerina with a major international dance company—the Dance Theatre of Harlem. She was the first Black ballerina on the cover of Dance magazine, an Essence cover star, cast in The Wiz and on Broadway with Bob Fosse. She performed in some of ballet's most iconic works with her closest friends—founding members of the company, the Swans of Harlem, Gayle McKinney, Sheila Rohan, Marcia Sells, and Karlya Shelton—for the Queen of England and Mick Jagger, with Josephine Baker, and at the White House. Some 40 years later, when Abarça’s granddaughter wanted to show her own ballet class evidence of her grandmother's success, she found almost none, but for some yellowing photographs and programs in the family basement. Abarça had struggled for years to reckon with the erasure of her success, as all the Swans had. Still united as sisters in the present, they decided it was time to share their story themselves. Captivating, rich in vivid detail and character, and steeped in the glamor and grit of professional ballet, The Swans of Harlem is a riveting account of five extraordinarily accomplished women, a celebration of their historic careers, and a window into the robust history of Black ballet, hidden for too long.

by Norma Miller

It was a time when the music was swing, and Harlem was king. Renowned as the "world's most beautiful ballroom" and the largest and most elegant in Harlem, the Savoy was the only ballroom not segregated when it opened in 1926. The Savoy hosted the best bands and attracted the best dancers by offering the challenge of fierce competition. White people traveled uptown to learn exciting new dance styles. A dance contest winner by 14, Norma Miller became a member of Herbert White's Lindy Hoppers and a celebrated Savoy Ballroom Lindy Hop champion. Swingin' at the Savoy chronicles a significant period in American cultural history and race relations, as it glorifies the home of the Lindy Hop, and the birthplace of such memorable dance fads as the Big Apple, Shag, Truckin' Peckin', Susie Q, the Charleston, Peabody, Black Bottom, Cake Walk, Boogie Woogie, Shimmy, and tap dancing.

by Dan Hassler-Forest

In just over a decade, Janelle Monáe has become a formidable figure in global media culture. Her Afrofuturist concept albums and "emotion pictures" established Monáe as an ambitious innovator who draws on science fiction to rewire our understanding of race and gender. As an actor, her performances have explored these same vectors across other media, while her music provides the soundtrack for socially-engaged media productions, from Us to David Byrne's American Utopia. Monáe's increasingly central presence in the global media landscape makes her an ideal figure to investigate the dynamics between media, race, and gender.

by Maurice White

Earth, Wind & Fire was one of the most popular and significant bands of the past century, celebrated alongside Chicago, the Commodores, Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, and Sly and the Family Stone. They transcended genres and fused diverse influences, from R&B to pop to jazz and beyond, earning multiple Grammy Awards—and most recently a Lifetime Achievement Award, shortly after the passing of the band's founder, Maurice White. Although many of White's contemporaries and fans, including Quincy Jones, Questlove, and Diane Warren, felt a kinship with him through his music, he himself was an intensely private man. In this riveting account of his personal life and his massively popular band, he bares his soul. 

by John F. Szwed

Sun Ra was born in Alabama on May 22, 1914. After years as a rehearsal pianist for nightclub revues and in blues and swing bands, including Wynonie Harris's and Fletcher Henderson's, Sun Ra set out in the 1950s to find a way to impart his values about the galaxy, Black people, and spiritual matters through the various incarnations of the Intergalactic Arkestra. His repertoire ranging from boogie-woogie, swing, and bebop to free form, and fusion, Sun Ra was above all a paragon of contradictions: profundity and vaudeville; technical pianistic virtuosity and irony; assiduous attention to arrangements and encouragement of collective improvisation; respect for tradition and celebration of the fresh.