Katherine Dunham was very affected by civil rights throughout her whole life. On the home front in America, she was discriminated against because she was black, and unfortunately in other countries as well. She was a political activist in her own right and used her own medium for it. For example, she was on her way to performance in the South. When she arrived to the theater, she learned that the local black residents were not allowed to purchase tickets to her show, and she refused to go on. Another example was a performance in Tennessee; she had a wonderful acceptance by the crowd and even got a standing ovation. She quieted the audience down and stated that she would not return unless the city was desegregated and blacks were allowed to sit in the theatre with everybody else.
Dunham also was an advocate for Haiti, the island where she lived and studied for many years. Haiti has always been a center of political turmoil and unrest. Even at the age of 82 in 1992, Dunham went on a near 50-day hunger strike to protest the United States’ recent decision to “repatriate” Haitian refugees.
Katherine Dunham was also a big arts education advocate. She built her Performing Arts Training Center amongst the rough neighborhoods of East St. Louis in the late 60’s. She built it in hopes of bringing a new avenue of opportunities to the local poor community, when she could have easily built a more lucrative studio in a posh neighborhood. Her focus was to expand and aid in urban development.
Now, these might not all have been single events or trends, but they were on-going struggles of her people, and she did what she could to help fight for their rights.
LINKS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vyx6ue7K6o
http://www.kdcah.com/index.html
"I used to want the words 'She tried' on my tombstone. Now I want 'She did it.'" ~Katherine Dunham
Interesting how 'white' people were buying tickets to see a 'black' woman perform. In a way it was almost like the audience was putting her on a level of art worth seeing. Yet, they did not allow 'blacks' to see the show. It could be that they perceived her color as part of her art and not something that connected her with her people.
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