Exterior shot of the Cotton Club in its heydayNew Years celebration, 1935. Performance by Cab Callow
Exterior shot of the Cotton Club in its heydayNew Years celebration, 1935. Performance by Cab Calloway and his bandAlthough the Harlem Renaissance is often thought of as an explosion of African American cultural expression and recognition, most of the white New Yorkers who flocked uptown when the sun went down nonetheless a upheld a standard of racial discrimination. The area’s most famous nightclubs, including the Cotton Club (shown above), were whites-only. Banished from the audience, blacks were allowed on stage, and some of the most famous black entertainers of the era - Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, and more - performed at the Cotton Club between 1923 and 1940. -- source link
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