The Cotton Club

In the 1920s and 1930s jazz clubs were extremely popular social gathering spots, especially in big cities like New York City. One of New York’s most famous jazz clubs was the Cotton Club. 

A Bootlegger’s Dream

Originally located in Harlem, a majority-African-American neighborhood in New York City, the Cotton Club opened in 1920. It was started by Jack Johnson, the first African American boxing champion, but three years later Owney “The Killer” Madden bought the club. Madden was a famous white gangster and bootlegger. His primary goal was to use the Cotton Club to illegally sell alcohol.

In the 1920s the U.S. government passed a law outlawing the manufacture and sale of alcohol across the country. The era came to be known as Prohibition. Because alcohol was illegal, gangsters like Owney Madden could make a lot of money by selling it to people willing to take the risk. The Cotton Club was briefly shut down for selling alcohol, but it restarted without much trouble.

An Unusual Racial Situation

The Cotton Club was “whites-only” — only white people were allowed to come inside and enjoy the atmosphere and entertainment. On one hand, this rule was not too surprising, because during the 1920s most of the U.S. was racially segregated. White Americans did not want to see African Americans in their social gathering places.

But on the other hand, the rule was quite surprising. First, Harlem was about 70% African American, yet none of those African Americans could go to the famous club right in their own neighborhood. Second, most of the performers at the Cotton Club were African American. The managers coordinated this intentionally. Madden wanted to give “authentic black entertainment to a wealthy, whites-only audience.”

Unfortunately, his view of African American culture was simplistic and racist. Most of the Cotton Club shows included a “jungle” theme, based on a common idea of the time that non-Western cultures were wild and savage. Dancers wore exotic clothes, and were made to move like animals. Other shows recreated the southern plantations of the early 1800s, where African Americans had been enslaved.

The dancing, music, and entertainment were extremely popular, but they reinforced negative stereotypes of modern African Americans.

A Jazz Institution

Despite the racist undertones, the Cotton Club featured many of the most famous African American musicians and performers of the time. Duke Ellington, a successful jazz musician, started his career as the leader of a jazz orchestra at the club. He encouraged the management to begin letting some African American customers attend the performances. Other famous performers at the Cotton Club were Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald.

The Legacy of the Cotton Club

Race riots hit Harlem in 1936, causing the Cotton Club to close down. It re-opened in a different part of the city later that year, starting out with a well-publicized, Broadway-level show. The club stayed in its new location until 1940, when it closed down permanently.

 Today the Cotton Club is remembered as a cultural hotbed that groomed some of the greatest jazz musicians in the world, while also perpetuating harmful racial relationships. Poet Langston Hughes criticized the club for reducing its African American performers to zoo animals and forcing the closure of other local African American bars in the Harlem community.