Black Legacy by William Loren Katz

Author:William Loren Katz [Katz, William Loren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: american history; social justice; activism; history books for teens and young adults; american history books; Middle School; Martin Luther King Jr; Jazz Age; Weeksville; Seneca Village; Black Lives Matter; Harlem Renaissance; New York City; New York; Human Rights; Civil Rights; US History; United States History; Black History; African American History; Young Adult Nonfiction; Young Adult; books for 12 year old girls; books for 13 year old girls; books for 12 year old boys; books for 13 year old boys; civil rights
ISBN: 9781644214404
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Published: 2025-12-26T17:30:00+00:00

Bill Robinson, born in Virginia in 1878, settled in Harlem. From 1929 to 1943, his unique translations of African American folk-dance styles into light, breezy tap dance steps earned him parts in ten Hollywood feature films. He also starred in independent Black films. In 1935, in The Little Colonel, Robinson delighted movie audiences as he taught child star Shirley Temple to dance up a staircase. By then he was known as “the mayor of Harlem.”

At age nineteen, in 1905, James Van Der Zee, with little more than a fascination with photography, settled in Harlem. He was an elevator boy and waiter who snapped pictures when he had the time. In 1918, from his studio on 135th Street, he stood ready to capture the grandeur of the Harlem Renaissance on film. He became the official photographer for Garvey’s UNIA. Van Der Zee’s photos reveal a vibrant community grappling with its burdens.

For poet Countee Cullen, New York City was home. Born in 1903, he graduated from New York public schools, where he had begun to write poetry. One of a few Black students at the DeWitt Clinton High School, he was vice president of its senior class and editor of its Clinton News and of its literary magazine. By graduation, Cullen held honors in Latin, English, history, and French, and one of his poems had earned a coveted prize. He went on to New York University, where he won one poetry prize after another, and then to Harvard University and the Sorbonne. He lived at 234 West 131st Street.4

Harlem’s Black Jews, photographed in 1929. James Van Der Zee collection.

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