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50-612: The Cotton Club may refer to: Cotton Club , a famous nightclub in New York City Cotton Club (Portland, Oregon) , a now-defunct club The Cotton Club (film) , a 1984 film centered on the New York club The Cotton Club (soundtrack) See also [ edit ] Cotton Club (disambiguation) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with

100-677: A Broadway production and a higher salary than had ever been paid to any nightclub entertainer. In June 1935, the Cotton Club opened its doors to black patrons. In preparation for the Joe Louis fight the club planned a gala and, "extended an open invitation to the Sepians." That same year, the club was forced to close its doors due to the Harlem race riots]], only to reopen one year later at Broadway and 48th Street. Calloway and Robinson were

150-621: A United States Senate inquiry into the Mississippi election of 1875. J.W. Lee, previously Mayor of Aberdeen, Mississippi and Sheriff of Monroe County in the same state identified the policy of the Democrats as "the color line policy." In 1881 Frederick Douglass published an article with that title in the North American Review . He likened the color line to a disease of morality and gives seven propositions against it. At

200-592: A continued use of the phrase even through the legalized segregation that continued after the abolition of slavery. It reflects a dual meaning of the phrase; one aspect of which reflects a color line created by the law, and the other of which reflects the de facto disparity between life for African Americans in the United States and life for other citizens. The term was also popularized during the emergence of Pentecostalism as it grew in North America. During

250-505: A drum in the jungle. Tribal mask illustrations make up the border of the menu. The club imposed a subtler color line on the chorus girls , whom the club presented in skimpy outfits. They were expected to be "tall, tan, and terrific", which meant they had to be at least 5'6" tall, light-skinned, and under 21 years of age. The male dancers', the Cotton Club Boys , skin colors were more varied. "Black performers did not mix with

300-546: A freedom to experiment with orchestral arrangements that touring bands rarely experienced. Ellington recorded more than 100 compositions during this period. Eventually, responding to Ellington's request, the club slightly relaxed its policy of segregation. Cab Calloway 's orchestra brought its "Brown Sugar" revue to the club on September 28, 1930, replacing Ellington's orchestra after its departure on February 4, 1931. Jimmie Lunceford 's band replaced Calloway's in 1934. Ellington, Calloway, and Louis Armstrong returned to perform at

350-435: A house band. These revues helped launch the careers of many artists, including Andy Preer, who led the Cotton Club's first house band in 1923. Duke Ellington's orchestra was the house band from December 4, 1927, until June 30, 1931. The first revue that Ellington's orchestra performed was called the "Creole Revue" and featured Adelaide Hall . Hall had just recorded several songs with Ellington, including " Creole Love Call ",

400-495: A large floor or music by famous entertainers such as Ellington. An incarnation of the Cotton Club opened on 125th Street in Harlem in 1978. James Haskins wrote at the time, "Today, there is a new incarnation of the Cotton Club that sits on the most western end of the 125th Street under the massive Manhattanville viaduct. The windowless block of a building has a less dramatic display out front but seems to be popular with tourists for Sunday jazz brunches." A Chicago branch of

450-462: A lifetime the color line had been a real and efficient cause of misery. He goes on to write: "No, the race problem in which I was interested cut across lines of color and physique and belief and status and was a matter of cultural patterns, perverted teaching and human hate and prejudice, which reached all sorts of people and caused endless evil to all men." These quotations are of note because they reflect an expansion of Du Bois’ original definition of

500-497: A stage. Sixteen-year-old Lena Horne was also featured on the bill. After appearing at the Cotton Club the entire show starring Adelaide Hall was taken out on a road tour across America. The club closed temporarily in 1936 after the race riot in Harlem the previous year . Carl Van Vechten had vowed to boycott the club for having such racist policies as refusing entry to African Americans in place. The Cotton Club reopened later that year at Broadway and 48th. The site chosen for

550-602: A trip to Poland and his changing attitude toward his phrase "the color-line". In the short essay, entitled "The Negro and the Warsaw Ghetto", Du Bois wrote about his three trips to Poland, particularly his third in 1949, during which he viewed the remains of the Warsaw Ghetto . Du Bois wrote: The result of these three visits, and particularly of my view of the Warsaw ghetto, was not so much clearer understanding of

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600-406: A universal exclusivity, of "color" as the greatest problem of the 20th century. The general use of the term the "color-line" however, is usually in reference to the United States, a possibility Du Bois did not acknowledge in his initial essays. The phrase circulates in modern vernacular as well as literary theory. For example, Newsweek published a piece by Anna Quindlen entitled "The Problem of

650-489: A worldwide hit. The club gave Ellington national exposure through radio broadcasts originating there, first over WHN , then over WEAF , and after September 1929 on Fridays over the NBC Red Network , for which WEAF was the flagship station. The club also enabled him to develop his repertoire while composing dance tunes for the shows as well as overtures, transitions, accompaniments, and "jungle" effects, giving him

700-440: A zoo." Hughes also believed that the Cotton Club negatively affected the Harlem community. The club brought an "influx of whites toward Harlem after sundown, flooding the little cabarets and bars where formerly only colored people laughed and sang." Hughes also mentioned how many of the neighboring cabarets, especially black cabarets, were forced to close due to the competition from the Cotton Club. These smaller clubs did not have

750-613: Is the problem of the color-line", the more frequently quoted version of the sentiment. Ample nuance exists among the three versions of Du Bois’ prediction in The Souls of Black Folk , as within a very short amount of text Du Bois provides the reader with three incarnations of the thought. Some of the difference may be the result of the original serialization of the work, as parts of this book were originally serialized, many in The Atlantic Monthly . The first reference draws

800-488: Is to be "blamed for indifference", but to do so means "he is liable to have his feelings hurt and get into unpleasant altercation". In his 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk , Du Bois used the phrase in his introduction, titled "The Forethought", writing: "This meaning is not without interest to you, Gentle Reader; for the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of color line". The phrase occurs again in

850-500: The North American Review in 1881. The phrase gained fame after W. E. B. Du Bois ' repeated use of it in his 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk . The phrase sees current usage as a reference to modern racial discrimination in the United States and legalized segregation after the abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement . It is difficult to find an exact origin of the phrase "the color line." However,

900-526: The Cotton Club Gala in 1976. The Cotton Club Comes to the Ritz (1985) starring Adelaide Hall , Cab Calloway , Doc Cheatham , The Nicholas Brothers etc. Produced by BBC TV. In the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit , the fictional Ink and Paint Club is based on the Cotton Club. After Midnight is a 2013 Broadway musical revue about the music created during Duke Ellington's years at

950-711: The First Pan-African Conference in London in July 1900, the delegates adopted an "Address to the Nations of the World", drafted by Du Bois and to which he was a signatory, that contained the sentence: "The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the colour-line". Du Bois introduces the concept of the color line in his 1899 work The Philadelphia Negro when discussing social interactions between

1000-541: The Will Mastin Trio ), and the Nicholas Brothers performed at the club as well. Another notable "Cotton Club Parade" in 1933 featured Ethel Waters , and Duke Ellington performing Stormy Weather . Later this performance would also include Lena Horne , and Katherine Dunham in the film adaptation of Stormy Weather . The club also drew from white popular culture. Walter Brooks, who had produced

1050-426: The "Cotton Club Parade 1934", the highest-grossing show ever to appear at the club. The show opened on March 11, 1934, and ran for six months, attracting over 600,000 paying customers. The score was written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler and featured the classic song " Ill Wind ". During Hall's performance of "Ill Wind", a dry-ice machine was used to create a fog effect, the first time such equipment had been used on

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1100-460: The Broadway bandwagon, with a show that is calculated to give the customers their money's worth of sound and color—and it does." The most extravagant revue in the club's 13-year history opened on September 24, 1936, with Robinson and Calloway leading a roster of approximately 130 performers. Stark paid Bill "Bojangles" Robinson $ 3,500 a week, the highest salary ever paid to a black entertainer in

1150-472: The Color Line," about the continuing plague of racial discrimination in the United States . The phrase does not only find use in the print world, either. PBS created a series entitled America Beyond the Color Line with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. , a documentary series that looked at communities of African Americans in four areas of the United States. The phrase's current use in modern journalism reflects

1200-515: The Cotton Club continue to remember that it came down from Harlem". Entrance was expensive for customers, and it included a two dollar minimum cover fee on weekdays for food and drink, so the performers were well-compensated. Shows at the Cotton Club were musical revues , and several were called "Cotton Club Parade" followed by the year. Musical revues were created twice a year in hopes of becoming successful Broadway shows. The revues featured dancers, singers, comedians, and variety acts, as well as

1250-405: The Cotton Club served as a hip meeting spot, with regular "Celebrity Nights" on Sundays featuring guests including Jimmy Durante , George Gershwin , Sophie Tucker , Paul Robeson , Al Jolson , Mae West , Richard Rodgers , Irving Berlin , Eddie Cantor , Fanny Brice , Langston Hughes , Judy Garland , Moss Hart , and Jimmy Walker . In 1920, heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson rented

1300-559: The Cotton Club was run by Ralph Capone , and a California branch was located in Culver City during the late 1920s and early 1930s, featuring performers from the original Cotton Club such as Armstrong, Calloway, and Ellington. Cotton Clubs in Las Vegas , Portland, Oregon , Lubbock, Texas , and Colorado Springs were all different locations of other Cotton Clubs. The Lubbock club was opened on November 11, 1938, by Tommy Hancock, and

1350-469: The Cotton Club. 40°49′08″N 73°56′13″W  /  40.819°N 73.937°W  / 40.819; -73.937 Color line (civil rights issue) The term color line was originally used as a reference to the racial segregation that existed in the United States after the abolition of slavery . An article by Frederick Douglass that was titled "The Color Line" was published in

1400-519: The Jewish problem in the world as it was a real and complete understanding of the Negro problem. In the first place, the problem of slavery, emancipation and caste in the United States was no longer in my mind a separate and unique thing as I had so long conceived it. It was not even solely a matter of color and physical and racial characteristics, which was particularly a hard thing for me to learn, since for

1450-545: The Nicholas Brothers, the whole thing, the whole schmear. [The Cotton Club] was a great place because it hired us, for one thing, at a time when it was really rough [for Black performers].' — Lena Horne The Cotton Club Gala , which featured some of the club's original dancers, was produced at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club twice in 1975 and again in 1985. The 1985 production was directed by La MaMa founder Ellen Stewart . La MaMa also toured Europe with

1500-519: The approach of a dark tenant." Closer to the end of the twentieth century, Karla F.C. Holloway , a professor of English at Duke University , centered her keynote address to the National Conference of Researchers of English on this sentence, saying: "Perhaps while sitting in his den or maybe in the midst of academic clutter at his university office, Du Bois penned the epic words that will center my reflections in this essay – 'The problem of

1550-454: The black and white inhabitants of Philadelphia. 'In all walks of life the Negro is liable to meet some objection to his presence or some discourteous treatment; and the ties of friendship or memory seldom are strong enough to hold across the color line.' Du Bois goes on to illustrate this by discussing various social contexts in which the black American is faced with social dilemmas as to whether or not to enter white-dominated spaces: to not enter

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1600-577: The book's second essay, "Of the Dawn of Freedom", at both its beginning and its end. At the outset of the essay, Du Bois writes: "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line—the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea". At the end of the essay, Du Bois truncates his statement to: "The problem of the twentieth century

1650-472: The club in later years. Lena Horne (Leona Laviscount) began at the Cotton Club as a chorus girl at the age of sixteen, and sang "Sweeter than Sweet" with Calloway. Dorothy Dandridge performed at the club while part of the Dandridge Sisters , and Coleman Hawkins and Don Redman played at the club as part of Henderson's band. Tap dancers Bill "Bojangles" Robinson , Sammy Davis Jr. (as part of

1700-451: The club's clientele, and after the show many of them went next door to the basement of the superintendent at 646 Lenox, where they imbibed corn whiskey , peach brandy, and marijuana." Ellington was expected to write "jungle music" for a white audience; Ellington's contributions to the Cotton Club were priceless, as described in this 1937 New York Times excerpt: "So long may the empirical Duke and his music making roosters reign—and long may

1750-435: The club's manager. Madden "used the Cotton Club as an outlet to sell his #1 beer to the prohibition crowd". When the club closed briefly in 1925 for selling liquor, it soon reopened without interference from the police. An extensive drink list continued to be available on the Cotton Club menu and sold to white guests following the shut down. Herman Stark then became the stage manager. Harlem producer Leonard Harper directed

1800-427: The club's segregated atmosphere and commented that it was "a Jim Crow club for gangsters and monied whites." In addition to the "jungle music" and plantation-themed interior, Hughes believed that Madden's idea of "authentic black entertainment" was similar to the entertainment provided at a zoo and that white "strangers were given the best ringside tables to sit and stare at the Negro customers - like amusing animals in

1850-429: The color-line to include discrimination beyond that of color discrimination, Du Bois also pared down his definition to acknowledge that the "problem of the color-line" as he initially imagined it existed in the United States and did not manifest itself identically across the world. Though discrimination existed everywhere, Du Bois expanded his mindset to include discrimination beyond that of simply black versus white. Both

1900-478: The first two of three opening night floor-shows at the new venue. The Cotton Club was a whites-only establishment with rare exceptions for black celebrities such as Ethel Waters and Bill Robinson. It reproduced the racist imagery of the era, often depicting black people as savages in exotic jungles or as " darkies " in the plantation South . A 1938 menu included this imagery, with illustrations done by Julian Harrison, showing naked black men and women dancing around

1950-499: The house act and were paid $ 3,500 per week (which was reportedly the most ever paid to a nightclub performer at the time). The club closed permanently in 1940 under pressure from higher rents, changing taste, and a federal investigation into tax evasion by Manhattan nightclub owners. The Latin Quarter nightclub opened in its space and the building was torn down in 1989 to build a hotel. The Broadway Cotton Club successfully blended

2000-599: The new Cotton Club was a big room on the top floor of a building where Broadway and Seventh Avenue meet, an important midtown crossroads at the center of the Great White Way , the Broadway Theater District . Stark and the club's owners were quite certain the club would succeed in this new location, but they realized that success depended on a popular opening show. A 1937 New York Times article states, "The Cotton Club has climbed aboard

2050-476: The old and new; the site was new and the décor was slightly different, but once a customer was seated it felt like a familiar place. Madden's goal for the Cotton Club was to provide "an authentic black entertainment to a wealthy, whites-only audience." Langston Hughes , a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance , attended the Cotton Club as a rare black customer. Following his visit, Hughes criticized

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2100-570: The phrase appeared frequently in newspapers during the Reconstruction era with specific reference to divisions between blacks and whites. For example, the July 7, 1869, issue of the Richmond Virginia Dispatch described a "color line" running between two candidates for governor. Most uses of the term in the 1870s were in newspapers from former slave states and dealt with elections. A search of Newspapers.com indicates

2150-528: The phrase appeared in newspapers with increasing frequency from 1873 on. Early usage includes an 1871 address as part of an anniversary celebration of the New England Society. At that event General Horace Porter referred to the color line as being the result of being in battle alongside black troops in Virginia which his audience found humorous. The term occurs several times in testimony during

2200-401: The quote and the phrase can be found in numerous texts of the 20th century, both academic and non-academic alike. Langston Hughes uses the phrase in his autobiography, writing: "In Cleveland, a liberal city, the color-line began to be drawn tighter and tighter. Theaters and restaurants in the downtown area began to refuse to accommodate colored people. Landlords doubled and tripled their rent at

2250-457: The reader in with a direct reference, while the second goes so far as to identify all of the areas in the world where Du Bois believed the color-line was "the problem of the twentieth century". All imply, whether directly or passively, that the color-line extends outside the bounds of the United States. Many decades later, in 1952, nine years before he moved to Ghana , Du Bois wrote an essay for Jewish Life magazine about his experiences during

2300-434: The successful Broadway show Shuffle Along , was the club's nominal owner. Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh , one of the most prominent songwriting teams of the era, and Harold Arlen wrote the songs for the revues , one of which, Blackbirds of 1928 , starring Adelaide Hall , featured the songs " I Can't Give You Anything But Love " and "Diga Diga Doo", produced by Lew Leslie on Broadway. In 1934, Hall starred in

2350-474: The title The Cotton Club . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Cotton_Club&oldid=1135687521 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Cotton Club In its prime,

2400-461: The twentieth century is the problem of the color line.'" It is important to note that in much of the general usage of the quote, the "problem of the color-line" is implied as only a problem in the United States. However, in Du Bois’ initial writing, he extended the problem across much of the world to "Asia", "Africa", and "the islands of the sea". Du Bois’ thought in "Of the Dawn of Freedom" implied

2450-476: The upper floor of the building on the corner of 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue in the heart of Harlem and opened an intimate supper club called the Club Deluxe . Owney Madden , a prominent bootlegger and gangster , acquired the club following his release from Sing Sing Correctional Facility in 1923, and the venue's name was changed to the Cotton Club. The two arranged a deal that allowed Johnson to remain

2500-650: Was an integrated club, not unlike the Chicago club. The club in Lubbock, however, was home to more white artists than the Harlem club. The Cotton Club in Portland was opened by Paul Knauls in 1963. The club in Las Vegas was opened by Moe Taub in 1944. This location differed from other clubs because it was a casino. Taub opened the club to black servicemen. 'I learned from Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Adelaide Hall,

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