Cotton club

The Cotton Club was a famous night club in New York City that operated during Prohibition. While the club featured many of the greatest African American entertainers of the era, such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Bessie Smith, Cab Calloway, The Nicholas Brothers, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, and Ethel Waters, it generally denied admission to blacks. During its heyday, it served as a chic meeting spot in the heart of Harlem, featuring regular "Celebrity…

The Cotton Club

Cab Calloway performs at Harlem's Cotton Club in 1935.

At the end of World War I, society experienced a dramatic shift. Shaking off the misery and shell shock, young people broke with traditional values and embraced all things modern.

Harlem was at it's swinging-est peak from the mid-1920s to the mid-1930's. Folks from all over the world, as well as the local New Yorkers, came to Harlem for an evening of pleasure and 'Hot' entertainment. It was the hey day of Harlem night life. The "big four" Clubs were: The Cotton Club; Connie's Inn; Smalls Paradise and Barron Wilkin's Club. While they were the big-4, there may have been upwards of a few hundred others. Cotton Club 142nd Street and Lenox Ave. 1923 was the year of the…

10 of the most iconic night clubs in New York: The Cotton Club. See the full list here.

During the summer of 1912, the man who at the height of the Jim Crow era had become less than four years previously the first black world heavyweight boxing champion, opened Cafe de Champion – a “Black and Tan” restaurant and nightclub in the Bronzeville district of Chicago. The club was decorated in an ostentatiously … Continue reading "The Life and Loves of Boxer Jack Johnson and the History of the Cotton Club"

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When financiers told him that his troubled 1984 production had “too many black stories,” the Oscar winner gave in. Now he’s changing it back, and hoping for a second chance.