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Dancing down the barricades : Sammy Davis Jr. and the long civil rights era : a cultural history Cover Image Book

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

Sammy Davis Jr. and the long civil rights era : a cultural history. (portion title)
Jacobson, Matthew Frye 1958- (author.).

Summary: "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"--

Record details

  • ISBN: 9780520391802
  • ISBN: 0520391802
  • Physical Description: print
    xxviii, 314 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
  • Publisher: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2023]

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:
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"?

Search for related items by subject

Subject:
Davis, Sammy Jr 1925-1990
African Americans Civil rights History 20th century
African American entertainers Biography
Entertainers United States Biography
Genre:
Biographies.

Available copies

  • 7 of 7 copies available at NC Cardinal. (Show)
  • 1 of 1 copy available at Onslow County Public Library.

Holds

  • 0 current holds with 7 total copies.
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Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Status Due Date
Jacksonville Main Library BIO DAVIS (Text) 36015000548855 Adult Biography Available -
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