on Ain’t Misbehavin’

work in Locke’s groundbreaking 1925 literary anthology, The New Negro , which heralded a transformation of “social disillusionment to race pride.”

The syncopated rhythms of jazz spilled out of Harlem nightclubs in the 1920s, and into Broadway theaters. Poet Langston Hughes often credited the 1921 musical revue Shuffle Along with ushering in the Harlem Renaissance. The show’s four collaborators were African-American vaudeville performers who crossed paths at an NAACP benefit in Philadelphia in 1920. Comedians Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles were childhood friends from Tennessee; piano player Eubie Blake hailed from Baltimore and songwriter Noble Sissle was from Indiana. Together, they concocted a show that made its way to a music hall on the edge of Broadway at 63rd Street. Lively jazz songs, torrid dance numbers and a cast that included Paul Robeson and Josephine Baker ignited a successful run of 484 performances. Shuffle Along paved the way for a number of musical revues on Broadway that were created by African-American collaborators, including a 1928 sequel Keep Shufflin’ — with Thomas “Fats” Waller at the piano.

Shuffle Along and its successors represented the kind of artistic effort that Langston Hughes wrote about in his 1926 essay, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”:

We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. … If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn’t matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.