Dancing down the barricades : Sammy Davis Jr. and the long civil rights era : a cultural history / Matthew Frye Jacobson.

Title:

Author:

Jacobson, Matthew Frye, 1958- author.

ISBN:

9780520391802

Physical Description:

xxviii, 314 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 24 cm

Contents:

Preface : the long civil rights era -- Star rising at twilight : a childhood in vaudeville -- "A concentrated bunch of haters" : war time in Wyoming -- The all-negro cast, and other black spaces -- The Vegas Strip, network TV, and other white spaces -- "Division is not our destiny" : interracial romance and Golden boy -- Writing wrongs in Yes I can -- "The skin commits you" : civil rights itinerary -- Coda : what is the "post" of "post-civil rights"?

Abstract:

"Through the lens of Sammy Davis Jr.'s six-decade career in show business-from vaudeville to Vegas to Broadway, Hollywood, and network TV-Dancing Down the Barricades examines the workings of race in American culture. The title phrase holds two contradictory meanings regarding Davis's cultural politics: did he dance the barricades down, as he liked to think, or did he simply dance down them, as his more radical critics would have it? Sammy Davis Jr. was at once a pioneering, barrier-busting, anti-Jim Crow activist and someone who was widely associated with accommodationism and wannabe whiteness. Historian Matthew Jacobson attends to both threads, analyzing how industry norms, productions, scripts, roles, and audience expectations and responses were all framed by race, against a backdrop of a changing America. In the spirit of better understanding Davis's life and career, Dancing Down the Barricades examines the complexities of his constraints, freedoms, and choices for what they reveal about Black history and American political culture"-- Provided by publisher.

Personal Subject:

Davis, Sammy, Jr., 1925-1990.

Davis, Sammy, Jr., 1925-1990. (OCoLC)fst01800775

Subject Term:

African Americans -- Civil rights -- History -- 20th century.

Entertainers -- United States -- Biography.

African Americans -- Civil rights. (OCoLC)fst00799575

Entertainers. (OCoLC)fst00912655

Geographic Term:

United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155

Genre:

Biographies. (OCoLC)fst01919896

History. (OCoLC)fst01411628

Biographies.

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Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Avon-Washington Township Public Library	Adult Nonfiction Book Hardback	120791003044911	921 DAV	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

A deep dive into racial politics, Hollywood, and Black cultural struggles for liberation as reflected in the extraordinary life and times of Sammy Davis Jr.

Through the lens of Sammy Davis Jr.'s six-decade career in show business--from vaudeville to Vegas to Broadway, Hollywood, and network TV-- Dancing Down the Barricades examines the workings of race in American culture. The title phrase holds two contradictory meanings regarding Davis's cultural politics: Did he dance the barricades down, as he liked to think, or did he simply dance down them, as his more radical critics would have it?

Davis was at once a pioneering, barrier-busting, anti-Jim Crow activist and someone who was widely associated with accommodationism and wannabe whiteness. Historian Matthew Frye Jacobson attends to both threads, analyzing how industry norms, productions, scripts, roles, and audience expectations and responses were all framed by race against the backdrop of a changing America. In the spirit of better understanding Davis's life and career, Dancing Down the Barricades examines the complexities of his constraints, freedoms, and choices for what they reveal about Black history and American political culture.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In this intriguing deep dive, Yale University historian Jacobson (Roots Too) places singer and actor Sammy Davis Jr. (1925--1990) at the center of the intersection between race, culture, and politics in America. Tracking Davis's career from his earliest days in vaudeville as a young man to his later years on television, Jacobson provides a deeper understanding of the racial tightrope Davis had to walk. While the Rat Pack's cringeworthy racial banter was meant to signal their relative progressivism, Jacobson writes, Davis's participation "embodied neither resistance nor defiance nor critique nor self-definition." Jacobson also contextualizes the "popular obsession" over Davis's "predilection for dating white women" within the history of efforts to police interracial relationships in the U.S. and takes a deep dive into Davis's star turn in the 1964 revival of Golden Boy, which featured Broadway's first interracial kiss. Later chapters offer a close reading of Davis's autobiography Yes I Can and chart his changing fortunes as the Black Power era dawned. Nuanced, incisive, and frequently surprising, this is a worthy reconsideration of a divisive public figure. (Feb.)

Library Journal Review

With Sinatra's Rat Pack, Sammy Davis Jr. could claim that, by talent alone, he'd raised himself to inclusion in the great American melting pot. Throughout his career, he headlined in Las Vegas, integrated venues, and appeared on many television shows. But a younger Black generation wanted recognition for their differences; to them, Davis was a sellout. Yet in the '60s, Martin Luther King Jr. relied on Davis's star power for fundraisers, with Davis eventually traveling to the South to protest in person. Still, this book shows that Davis was caught between warring views of what it meant to be Black in a racist U.S. Jacobson (history, Yale Univ.; The Historian's Eye) is one of the subtlest commentators on what it means to be caught in such a cultural bind. VERDICT A subtle, insightful book likely to be on many readers' radar for its nuanced look at the consequences of a racial divide with roots that, as Jacobson makes clear, are longstanding, systemic, and institutional.--David Keymer

List of Illustrations	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Author's Note	xvii
Preface: The Long Civil Rights Era	xix
1 Star Rising at Twilight: A Childhood in Vaudeville	1
2 "A Concentrated Bunch of Haters": War Time in Wyoming	35
3 The All-Negro Cast, and Other Black Spaces	64
4 The Vegas Strip, Network TV, and Other White Spaces	99
5 "Division Is Not Our Destiny": Interracial Romance and Golden Boy	141
6 Writing Wrongs in Yes I Can	167
7 "The Skin Commits You": Civil Rights Itinerary	205
Coda: What Is the "Post" of "Post-Civil Rights"?	239
Notes	253
Index	285

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Summary

Summary

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Library Journal Review

Table of Contents