USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Cotton Club, legendary nightspot in the Harlem district of New York City that for years featured prominent Black entertainers who performed for white audiences. The club served as the springboard to fame for Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, and many others.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Cotton Club was Harlem’s premier nightclub in the 1920s and 1930s. The club featured many of the greatest African American entertainers of the era, including Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, and Ethel Waters.

Detailed explanation-3: -The Cotton Club was a whites-only establishment and reproduced the racist imagery of segregation, often depicting black people as savages in exotic jungles or as “darkies” in the plantation South. The club imposed a subtler color line on the chorus girls, whom the club presented in skimpy outfits.

Detailed explanation-4: -The Cotton 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.

Detailed explanation-5: -White folks in New York wanted to enjoy the Harlem nightlife, but some didn’t want to socialize with people of color while doing it. Gangster Owney Madden, a Chicagoan, created the Cotton Club on 142nd St. & Lenox Avenue to be a whites-only club, except for the entertainers and staff.