The Dayton Ohio Daily-Express.
November 30, 1949
Bill Robinson
Bojangles Really Rose to the Occasion Once
By A. D. Braithwaite
It is always with regret that we the living must witness the passing on of others, particularly those who in one wise or another were controversial figures. It would take a Westbroke Pegler to derive intense glee from the death of a person whom one did not greatly admire while alive. Bill Bojangles Robinson to those Negroes who knew him personally, or knew of him was not greatly admired. Bojangles, as many others like him, lived a sort of double life. This writer knew it as do several others who live in Dayton and
(Bojangles Really)
who knew him. The famed danced displayed one side of his character to whites, the other side to Negroes. Countless stories and anecdotes could be related to illustrate this. Robinson was hard on his hired help. He would repeatedly order his chauffer to call for him at 4 a.m. in the morning at the club where he worked or frequented and then he would decide to walk home. This writer will never forget the night he witnessed Bojangles strut back and forth in front of Small's Paradise cussing and threatening singer Claudia McNeil because she didn't speak to him at the bar. If any words are unprintable, what he said that night most certainly were.
But what really antagonized and agonized Negroes against Bill, and what probably endeared his to whites (explaining the deluge of fine eulogies in the white press) was his Uncle Tomishness with whites. It is painful to remember the times he bent over in public while little Shirley Temple rubbed her “Uncle Bill's&rdquol pate. He bent over at his 60th birthday anniversary in New York to permit whites to rub “this old colored man's head.”
At his famous Rhythm Club on 7th Avenue, scene of many of his gambling losses, his actions were reprehensible. And there was the time he danced up Broadway in absurd attire while the crowds threw money at him.
But if Bill's antics pained many who otherwise might have felt less restrained in their warmth to ward him, it must be honestly stated that there was one time that he really rose to the occasion. During the last war when the famous Zanzibar Night Club in New York was in full swing it was the general policy of the club to sit Negroes together in remote section of the mammoth place. They tried to move Bojangles and his party to the side one night and a friend who happened to be there said he really tore the roof down with his protest.
Perhaps, after all, Bill merely reflected the tenor of the generation of entertainers of which he is a part and which is slowly giving way to more socially-conscious performers like Canada Lee, Lena Horne, Josh White, etc. But not Clarence Muse, Stephen Fetchit or “Beulah.”
For all his shortcomings, may Bill's soul rest in peace.
Bojangles Really Rose to the Occasion Once by By A. D. Braithwaite, The Ohio Daily-Express, Dayton, Ohio, November 30, 1949, Pages 1 & 4.