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The Cotton Club: Harlem In The 1920's

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The Cotton Club
Harlem was a vibrant community filed with culture and in the 1920 's was the Harlem renaissance. The Harlem renaissance was a African American movement that enlightened music, literature and many more things(Pietrusza, David). African American used this to bring a style to there appeal like jazz, but also was a movement to use there talents to fight for equal rights and equality. The cotton club was in the middle of the this cultural movement in which they saw that there was profit to make. As the cotton club soon began to became a well known club it started to attract many white clients who were looking for a good time. Many famous musicians started of in the cotton club like the famous composers of here time Duke Ellington and Arlen Harold.(Rollyson, Carl E)
The Cotton Club was more then a speak easy to white audiences it was part of a cultural diffusion. Located in the heart of Harlem in the corner of 142nd street and Lenox avenue. The cotton club originated in 1920 but wasn’t called the cotton club when it had its first appearance. Former heavyweight boxing champ Jack Johnson opened the Club De Luxe. Three years later it was sold to Owen Owney a bootlegger and pre-prohibition New …show more content…

The club imposed a more separate color bar on the chorus girls whom the club presented in little outfits(Pietrusza, David). They were expected to be tall, tan, and terrific, which meant that they had to be at least 5 feet 6 inches tall, light-skinned, and under 21 years of age. The skin color of the male dancers was more varied. Black performers did not mix with the club 's clientele, and after the show many of them went next door to the basement of the superintendent at 646 Lenox, where they consumed corn whiskey, peach brandy, and marijuana.Photographer Carl Van Vechten vowed to boycott the club for having such racist

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