Rockettes’ Lack Of Black Dancers Uncovered: All-White Cast Was Artistically Desirable Until The Late 80s

The Rockettes were late in the game when it came to diversity. Although the dance troupe now has a few black dancers, it wasn’t that way until decades after segregation was outlawed and equal employment opportunities were the social norm. It’s been uncovered by Mediate that a New York Times article published almost 30 years ago reported on the lack of black performers within the Rockettes cast.

According to the 1987 New York Times article titled “Rockettes and Race: Barriers Slip” by Bruce Lambert, the dance troupe noticeably rejected having anything other than a white cast — with the exception of one Japanese dancer who’d been dancing with them for over a year. When a black dancer was asked to audition for the production as an on-call dancer for the Super Bowl, Lambert wrote that “the color barrier in what is perhaps the world’s most famous chorus line is beginning to fall.”

Just prior to the audition, another black dancer had appeared in a “West Coast edition of the Rockettes.” The Rockettes lack of diversity was called out by civil rights officials as shocking given its “visible symbol of a multiracial city.”

”They stayed lily white all these years – in New York City, of all places,” said Hazel N. Dukes, president of the New York State chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. ”When I hear ‘White Christmas,’ to me it doesn’t mean Caucasian Christmas – it means American Christmas.”

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Rockettes’ Lack Of Black Dancers Uncovered: All-White Cast Was Artistically Desirable Until The Late 80s is an article from: The Inquisitr News