Papers by Daniel E . Atkinson
Daniel Atkinson, George “Nash” Walker_ The Unsung Favorite Son of Lawrence Kansas. Embattled Lawrence_ The Enduring Struggle for Freedom, Edited by Dennis Domer, (Lawrence, KS., Watkins Museum of History), 2022
This paper details the complicated relationship between George W. Walker and Lawrence, Kansas, hi... more This paper details the complicated relationship between George W. Walker and Lawrence, Kansas, his home. As one of the first Black stars of the vanguard generation of Black performers in the United States, the unique ethos of Lawrence empowered a true revolutionary at the dawn of Jim Crow.
Theatre History Studies, Volume 43, 2024
“‘Cake Walks and Culture’: The Black Struggle for Sovereignty at the Dawn of Jim Crow,” by Daniel... more “‘Cake Walks and Culture’: The Black Struggle for Sovereignty at the Dawn of Jim Crow,” by Daniel E. Atkinson, provides fresh historical analysis of George W. Walker and Bert Williams, offering the groundbreaking duo proper due as keepers of Black culture at the turn of the twentieth century. The piece explores the ways Walker and Williams left behind a living, breathing document for Black people climbing to the top and making it on Broadway through a close examination of their “Cake Walks and Culture,” which was originally published in The World in 1898. The essay, which glosses the history of the coon song, ragtime, and the cake walk, invites us to consider how vernacular traditions of Black dance and Black theatre remain mutually constitutive. At the same time, it underscores how the cake walk, which was derived from enslaved Black people parodying enslavers in the nineteenth century, typifies the Black aesthetic tradition of repetition and revision.
The Power of Narrartive: Tradition Bearers Share Inconvenient Truths
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Papers by Daniel E . Atkinson