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 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-3: -Opened in 1923, the Cotton Club on 142nd St & Lenox Ave in the heart of Harlem, New York was operated by white New York gangster Owney Madden. Madden used the Cotton Club as an outlet to sell his “#1 Beer” to the prohibition crowd.

Detailed explanation-4: -The Cotton Club symbolized how white America perceived African-Americans: as happy, dancing children, obsessed with sensuality and therefore incapable of sophisticated thoughts or actions.

Detailed explanation-5: -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. However, while the performers were black, the club only permitted white audiences.