The Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) was founded in New York City, New York during the summer of 1967, under the direction of actor Robert Hooks, actor, playwright, director Douglas Turner Ward, and producer, director Gerald Krone. From its beginning, NEC was criticized for its integrated … Read MoreThe Negro Ensemble Company (1967- )
In 1935, in the middle of the Great Depression President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Administration created the Works Progress Administration Federal Theatre Project (FTP) as part of the New Deal economic recovery program. Negro units, also called The Negro Theatre Project (NTP), were set up in … Read MoreFederal Theatre Project (Negro Units)
Harlem Federal Theatre Project Production of MacBeth (FTP was the Predecessor to the American Negro Theater) Image Courtesy of the Library of Congress Formed by Abram Hill, Frederick O’Neal, and other actors in Harlem, New York in 1940, the American Negro Theatre (ANT) was an … Read MoreAmerican Negro Theatre (1940-ca. 1955)
The Anita Bush Players, also known as the Anita Bush All-Colored Dramatic Stock Company was organized by Actor Anita Bush in New York City in 1915. An actor, dancer, and producer, Anita Bush turned to drama after a back injury ended her dancing career in … Read MoreAnita Bush Players
Def Jam Records, created by hip-hop entrepreneur Russell Simmons, is one of the most successful black-owned record labels in the history of the United States. Its success and influence on music and popular culture are paralleled only by Motown Records in the 1960s and 1970s. … Read MoreDef Jam Records (1984- )
Rap Music, and the culture that surrounds rapping itself, hip-hop, is a genre of music and a lifestyle which originated in the housing projects of New York City, New York in the late 1970s but which now has global influence. While not without controversy and … Read MoreRap/Hip Hop
Jazz pianist and popular singer Nathaniel Adams Coles was born into a musical family in Montgomery, Alabama on March 17, 1919. His mother Perlina was a choir director in his father Edward’s Baptist church. His three brothers, Edward, Ike, and Freddy, became professional musicians. Cole … Read MoreNat “King” Cole (1919-1965)
The African Company was the first known black theatre troupe. In 1816, William Henry Brown (1815-1884), a retired West Indian steamship steward, acquired a house on Thomas Street in lower Manhattan, New York. He offered a variety of instrumental and vocal entertainments on Sunday afternoons … Read MoreAfrican Company / African Grove Theatre
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater began in 1958 in New York City, New York as a repertory company of seven African American dancers performing both Ailey’s work and also classic modern pieces. They were soon acknowledged as the preeminent dance company articulating African American … Read MoreAlvin Ailey Dance Theater
Robert “Bumps” Blackwell was a musician, producer, and composer who worked with the top names in early jazz and rock and roll. Blackwell was born in Seattle, Washington on May 23, 1918. By the late 1940s his Seattle-based “Bumps Blackwell Junior Band” featured Ray Charles … Read MoreRobert “Bumps” Blackwell (1918-1985)
