Matthew Frye Jacobson - Dancing Down the Barricades: Sammy Davis Jr. and the Long Civil Rights Era

This has been a journey, as all book projects are, and I am lucky to have had so many fellow travelers. This one has been a longer journey than most, though. Its origins stretch back about twenty years to its conception as a chapter in a different volume that will never be written, as it turns out, languishing under contract for over fifteen years with University of California Presshah! That book was to be a cultural history of the long Civil Rights era. Its table of contents included a chapter on the integration of baseball (now a documentary film), one on the folk singer Odetta (now a book in the 33 1/3 series), and a book on comedian/activist Dick Gregory (forthcoming). This will conclude my Civil Rights tetralogy, I think. When I went back to the original research folders I had assembled on Davis, I realized that I would have to take this moment to thank my then-research assistant, now a tenured professor at Wesleyan, Megan Glick. Time does get away, doesnt it?

The long gestation of this project has given me plenty of opportunity to take stock of the many influences, models, and important pieces of advice I have gathered over the years. I am grateful to Judy Smith, whose mentoring and friendship have sustained me for nearly forty years across the span of my career, and for the example of her own work, especially Becoming Belafonte: Black Artist, Public Radical. I havent seen Judy nearly as much I would wish in recent years, but I was able to get her close, critical, lifesaving reading of this manuscript. My most systematic analysis of race in US political culture took shape under the tutelage of Bob Lee at Brown University; if Im lucky, his influence still shows. Early mentors who were responsible for my catching whatever bug it is that leads one to do this kind of work in the first place include David Marr, David Powell, and Richard Jones (all at The Evergreen State College), and Christopher Wilson and Carol Petillo (at Boston College). A middle-school English teacher named Evelyn Baird once told me that she thought I might one day write a book. I didnt know what to make of it at the time, but I will note that I never did forget it. (Mind what you say to kids.)

As ever, I am challenged, schooled, and energized every day by my ongoing conversations with colleagues at Yale in African American Studies, American Studies, History, and Ethnicity, Race & Migration. I came here in 1995, figuring it would be a good move for me intellectually. Still here, still learning. In the context of this project, special thanks to Jean-Christophe Agnew, Laura Barraclough, Alicia Schmidt Camacho, Hazel Carby, George Chauncey, Aimee Cox, Michael Denning, Kate Dudley, Rod Ferguson, Beverly Gage, Glenda Gilmore, Paul Gilroy, Jay Gitlin, Ron Gregg, Zareena Grewal, Jonathan Holloway, Greta LaFleur, Albert Laguna, Katie Lofton, Lisa Lowe, Mary Lui, Joanne Meyerowitz, Charlie Musser, Tavia Nyongo, Gary Okihiro, Steve Pitti, Ana Ramos-Zayas, Joe Roach, Marc Robinson, Karin Roffman, Elihu Ruben, Michael Veal, Laura Wexler, and Bryan Wolf. Colleagues in the African American Studies Department hosted a works-in-progress talk and workshop, providing many important suggestions and corrections at an important juncture: thanks to Crystal Feimster, Elizabeth Hinton, Nick Forster, and Gerry Jaynes. My friend, colleague, and department chair, Jackie Goldbsy, is singularly responsible for my returning to this project after many years away. Jackies interest and encouragement were crucial to my assessment that this little craft might be seaworthy after all. Gabrielle Niederhoffer generously spent time watching archival film with me and teaching me the nomenclature of tap-dance moves. Ella Starkman-Hynes chased down materials at the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Billy Rose Division of the New York Public Libraryas I thank her for this hard work, I also thank the staffs there as well. Melissa Barton and other staff members of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale were tremendously helpful and generous in locating materials throughout the collection. The mighty Van Truong did an amazing job of scouting images and permissions for the book, and advising on various technical matters. Aaron Green at Easy Song Licensing assisted in locating rightsholders and obtaining permissions for quoted song lyrics; I am also grateful to Hal Leonard LLC for granting rights to reprint lyrics from Puttin on the Ritz, Theres a Boat Dats Leavin Soon for New York, Shes Got It, and Why? (The King of Love Is Dead). Nate Jung gave the manuscript a close read and provided some important framing comments down the home stretch.

This material has taken shape in conversation with students in Race and American Studies, Methods and Practices in US Cultural History, The Politics and Culture of Race in America, and The Formation of American Culture over the past two decades and more. There have been scores of them, but I specifically remember instructive conversations on race, the culture industries, or the long Civil Rights era with Wendell Adjetay, Mary Barr, Amy Bass, Robin Bernstein, Lucy Caplan, Brian Distelberg, Anna Duensing, Joshua Feinzig, Francoise Hamlin, Brian Herrera, Micah Jones, Mark Krasovic, Adrian Lentz-Smith, Ben Looker, Lisa McGill, Justin Randolph, Theresa Runstedtler, Taiye Selasi, Eshe Sherley, Katy Stewart, Viet Trinh, and Azmar Williams. I apologize for overlooking anyone, as I surely am.

Josh Kun has been a valued interlocutor and model (his liner notes on Sammy Davis Jr. deserve your attention), and he offered important advice and corrections on this project. Over the years, it has been my luck to call him a good friend as well. If he alone were to find some value in this work, I couldnt ask for more. Gayle Wald, Tom Guglielmo, Melani McAlister, Dara Orenstein, and their students and colleagues in American Studies at George Washington University hosted me for a trial run of this work in 2019, offering helpful commentary, criticism, encouragement, and advice. I have also been fortunate beyond words to be in conversation with many scholars in the national network of the American Studies Association for the last twenty years and more. My thanks for great work, comradeship, and barstool conversations to Rachel Buff, Joel Dinerstein, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Matt Guterl, the late Amy Kaplan, Kara Keeling, Robin Kelley, Mark Naison, David Roediger, Carlo Rotella, Scott Saul, Nikhil Singh, and Jacqueline Stewart.