Social dancing links black Americans to their African past more strongly than any other aspect of their culture.

Dances like the Charleston, shimmy, snake hips, funky butt, twist, and slow drag originated in the jooks some can be traced back to Africa. The jook and its various derivative forms have provided both entertainment and an economic alternative (such as illegal lotteries and numbers) to people excluded from the dominant economy. In the jook, Hazzard-Gordon explains, an immeasurable amount of core black culture including food, language, community fellowship, mate selection, music, and dance found a sanctuary of expression when no other secular institution flourished among the folk.

Jook houses emerged during the Reconstruction era and can be viewed as a cultural response to freedom. Focusing on ten African-American dance arenas from the period of enslavement to the mid-twentieth century, this book explores the jooks, honky-tonks, rent parties, and after-hours joints as well as the licensed membership clubs, dance halls, cabarets, and the dances of the black elite. In northern cities, some aspects of black dance became integrated into white culture and commercialized. Like the blues, these secular dance forms and institutions were brought north and urbanized by migrating blacks. Beginning with the effects of African slaves’ middle passage experience on their traditional dances, she traces the unique and virtually autonomous dance culture that developed in the rural South. King with David Ritzīlues Legacies and Black Feminism by Angela Y.Katrina Hazzard-Gordon offers the first analysis of the development of the jook―an underground cultural institution created by the black working class―together with other dance arenas in African-American culture. The Black Dancing Body From Coon to Cool by Brenda Dixon Gottschildīlues All Around Me, The Autobiography of B.B. The Church, The Devil, and the Blues.Īn article: Improvisation in African-American Vernacular Dancing A Reading ListĪ selection of books where you can learn much more:īallroom, Boogie, Shimmy Sham, Shake: A Social and Popular Dance Reader by Julie Malnigīeyond the Crossroads: The Devil and the Blues Tradition by Adam Gussowīlack Dance in America: A History Through its People by James Haskinsīlack Dance: From 1619 to Today by Lynne Fauley Emery History ResourcesĪn interesting talk one of our bluesCENTRAL leaders attended. It uses Hound Dog as sung by Big Mama Thornton and Elvis Presley’s as an example.Īnother article on the subject, ‘Cultural Appropriation: When Borrowing Becomes Exploitation’. ‘The Question of Appropriation’ breaks it down into addressing exploitation and disrespect of other’s culture.

Jookin' by Katrina Hazzard-Gordon