Cakewalk Of Fame: Bert Williams, George Walker, & Aida Overton Pt. 1

stories then? Um, it's tough. I mean, the only one I have is that Atlanta is being sold to developers, piece by piece, so that everything we love about it will soon be gone with delightful hilarious son, But what an anecdote? I love it hilarious. I'm trying. I'm really trying to think of something. I don't know. I know, it's been a it's been a downer day. I was,

I had I had a hilarious story. I was on the phone with customer service for my cell phone provider, um for I don't know, four hours last night, in six hours today, hilarious. That was a good time, rip roaring treat for the whole family. Uh yeah, go ahead and leave them unnamed. They are all time tooth heads. I could say that. Um I, I mean I had my first therapy appointment ever. Another another exciting, thrilling fun time for everyone. Uh, it's good. It's been a hard

week alright, already dealing with business things. And how about how about now that the walls are down, I can see that screaming goat you got me for Christmas? Go ahead, grab it didn't come through, I don't know if it didn't. I don't know if anybody saw thor Love and Thunder, but it's basically that same thing. But this toy came out long before that movie because the joke in that movie was like nine years old, extremely old. Um, but yeah,

you loved that. That should always made you laugh. You could scream you should have had it today when you're on the phone with All Time two hits. Oh that's right, I should really let your feelings out. We had so much fun in our last episode. We were talking about

those Reddit breakups. We didn't even get to the Reddit marriage proposals or the Reddit sex stories, which will end up in an episode later for sure, but we did mention to all that we were doing that episode because we were deep in research for this episode, which I should say these episodes. Yes, I got I fell in love with these folks, so you know how it happens. It really does. Sometimes the ridiculous romances are really with

us and our subjects, that's true. But I really fell in love with them, and I got so fascinated in the history because it's theater history, so of course special place in my soul. But but they're just so amazing and kind of forgotten today. So and they deserve to be known about, I think definitely. Yeah, I just we got real into it. Y'all might not know this about us because we hide it pretty well, but we are of the theater persuasion in our backgrounds. Hello, I'm a

thespian acting act and so yeah. So this story about Vaudeville, early days of theater and uh and theater diversity more exciting also something we here in Atlanta are fortunate to get a decent dose of. Although uh, the tide's been turning more in that direction fortunately, yeah, hopefully nationwide, hopefully. I would say these performers kind of set that tone early on in the turn of the Turn of I guess I have to say the turn of the twenty century.

Now we turned a whole other century since then, so but no. At the turn of the twenty century, no vaudeville act was as popular or sought after as the Black Vaudeville troop of Williams and Walker. Bert Williams, who is still recognized as one of the greatest black comedians of all time, and George Walker, who was an equally talented performer and very savvy businessman. They put together their

own vaudeville troop in the eighteen nineties. But when George married Ada Overton and she joined the troop, the skype became the limit for these guys. With her choreography, their elaborate sets and costumes, and their determination to showcase black people in a less stereotypical way, they took Vaudeville by storm, and then Broadway and then the world. So let's learn more about these incredible theater legends, right, let's go, Hey, their French come listen. Well, Elia and Diana got some

stories to tell. There's no matchmaking a romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships. A lover might be any type of person at all, and abstract concept or a concrete wall, but if there's a story where the second Clinch Ridiculous role vance a production of iHeart Radio. So. George Walker was born in Kansas in eighteen seventy two or eighteen seventy three, and he started his performing career early. He

toured around with medicine and minstrel shows as a child. Now, minstrel shows had been one of the most popular comedic entertainments since eighteen forty eight because northern white people were really curious about what life was like in slavery, and who better to explain it to them than white men who really understood. So, yeah, white guys would put on black face, they would paint on very wide red lips, and they would wear white gloves, and they would imitate

these songs and dances of southern black people. Imitate, I think is a stretch. Imitators exaggerate, Yeah, just really do badly. I'm sure do poorly. Um. According to a New Yorker article by Claudia roth pier Punt called Behind the Mask, the minstrel show became quote the nation's first homegrown entertainment craze, which I had never I never knew that minstrel shows

were like our first American made entertainment. I know, I know sadly it does, but I guess we did import a lot of our entertainment from from Europe until yeah, that's true to their own stuff. Um, but I did not know that America, you know, love it has a tendency to say I'm gonna put my own stamp on this thing, and then that stamp is super racist. Well that's It's what's what's extra crazy to me is that right and right and here, right here, the very first

homegrown American entertainment thing had its roots in slavery. So it's very odd to me that, you know, people who don't like critical race theory are like, way, don't need to learn about slavery, and it's like, actually, it's like literally part of every American story. You can't leave it out because it's it left an indelible stamp on so

much of American life. It's just anyway, So minstrel shows, uh, we're first about kind of introducing I guess slavery life and and southern black people's lifestyles to northern white people, but they quickly devolved into mockery's of in support of slavery, and then later after the Civil War in support of

Jim Crow segregation law. So that's when they kind of like, I think, I guess at first, at least for a little while, very short period of time, they were since a year like this is this is what they look like down there they're doing. We want to share their like way of life with you. And it quickly became like, look at these idiots kind of wow, okay vibes, which almost is like exposing what was already underneath it anyway, just like oh yeah, sure they were sincere about it.

I'm sure they were very earnest and honesty with it. No, and then it just became like, actually, we're really just being racist. Let's just go ahead and be upfront about it. Why lie now? Actually, Jim Crow segregation laws were named after a minstrel character because black people were depicted as either the Jim Crow, which was a dimwitted, lazy country buffoon, or the Jim Dandy, or as it was also called, the Zip coon character um, which was a smooth talking

urban high class type. Obviously, the word coon is a slur. It was a slur in its own time, it is a slur today, so not a word to like add to our vocabularies or anything like that. Usually we don't say that kind of stuff if it's not historically important relevant story. In this case, it is, so we did preserve that name in this story. It's so interesting. I really thought that Jim Crow was a guy that that public education failed to teach me about. But it was

actually a character that public education failed to teach me exactly. Okay, either way, public education failed you. So you can still be mad once. That's it. That's the only time public exactly, just the one time. Now in minstrel shows, even black performers wore black face because of how much white audiences just hated to see black people on stage. Serious, not kidding. They would put on black cork, a burnt cork makeup and be like, look, I'm here, I am white people.

What's wrong with us? I do laugh sometimes, like I'm just like, white people are so sensitive. I mean, you see it today too, But it's just it's it really is. Yeah. Yeah, I shouldn't do the Southern accent because I mean, this wasn't even exclusively Southern. We're talking about New York, Boston, d C, Chicago. Forget handle it. I forget about it. I can't forget about it. Somebody got it. Do something

different because it's hurt in my eyes, God, losers insane. Now, by the eight nineties, minstrel shows were being elbowed out by vaudeville variety shows, kind of a new form of entertainment, but the black face and the minstrel stereotypical characters were

still incredibly popular. So when the charming and outspoken George Walker met the served talented musician and comic actor Burt Williams in San Francisco in eight they decided they would team up and create a good vaudeville act that would get him out of menstrul circuit for good, because they were done with all that awesome. Now. Burt Williams was a year younger than George. He was born in the Bahamas, but he emmigrated with his parents at eleven years old

to Florida and then they moved to California. Now, first he wanted to become an engineer, but he couldn't afford to go to Stanford University, so he became a singing waiter at hotels in San Francisco. Now, originally, when Burt and George got together, they just played the expectations like

Burt Williams. Since he had lighter skin, he would play the straight man of the act, and he would act opposite George Walker's dark skinned, bumbling of type character, because again it's just, oh, this must be what white people want to see. It was the dandy Walker was the jim Crow, right, But then they realized wouldn't the be a lot funnier if we switched, which is brilliant comedy. Quite frankly, so, George Walker, who was more dark skin

than Burt, would perform not in black face. He became the well dressed, strutting dandie character, and he would spend all the money that he borrowed or tricked away from Burt Williams slow, countrified simpleton character, and Bert did perform in black face to darken his light skin. Burt Williams, in fact, once said of his stage character quote, even if it rains soup, he would be found with a fork in his hand and no spoon insight. I love it.

Just an unlucky, you know, kind of guy. Camille Forbes in her book introducing Burt Williams, she points out that they suppressed the worst quality of the stereotypes they portrayed. They chose instead to lean into the comedy of opposites. So they had the wily schemer versus the innocent duke. Yeah, it's like an odd couple. Kind of classic classic, Yeah.

The Forbes writes that usually Bert's character would triumph in the end through quote rare but incisive manipulation, revealing his surprising awareness of the social order, despite his recognized identity as a simpleton. At the time, white people who performed in black face build themselves, as the Sea Word talked about earlier. So Walker and Williams decided to call themselves the two real coons, and that was to distinguish themselves, even though they knew it was a slur and they

both hated it. They were like, but we're the real ones, you know, basically now, Camille Forbes explains this, She said, quote black entertainer's success depended on their ability to satisfy white audiences desire for authentic performances of blackness. Bert and George's self description was a recognizable response to that demand. I just love that white people are like, I want an authentic portray alee of blackness, but only white people can do it and only white men. Also, I don't

want to see a lady. Yeah right, Okay, how authentic can it possibly be? That's like, that's like me being like, I only eat authentic Italian food at good old Italian restaurants like the Olive Gardens, because that's oh my god, I mean, you know, that's it's also that's what they wanted to see. They wanted to see enslave people and segregated people portrait as being like happy and fine with it and they're dumb and they don't care and it's

fine and that's the proper way of things. Yeah, when you showed them the reality, they said, no, no, no, that's not real. I've seen it before. I've seen shows. Yeah, I know how. They're actually happy. They're singing. Yeah, you know, which did happen in slavery because they would sing. People to see they're singing, so they must be happy out there. And it's like, actually that's instructions on how to escape slavery through the river are like, I mean, look, this

is important information because this is happening. This is happening when we look at like textbooks now where they're trying to change slavery to like involuntary employment and stuff like that, and make it sound like people were having a better time than they were, because guess what, they weren't having any good time, or that they were treated better than they were, or even that if they were treated well, it justified the whole system of slavery, which it doesn't.

I don't care how well I'm nice you were, you know, it does you owned another person. That's totally crazy. But in Burton George's publicity photos, they were always like the opposite of white people expected. They were immaculate and well dressed, and this underlined the differences between the caricatures of black men that people saw on stage and they themselves. Is the real thing. Yeah, they're like what you're seeing ain't even when I'm doing it, that ain't the truth. This

is the truth. I'm a classy motherfucker. That's the true. Right. But even having done this and like making that distinct difference in their marketing materials, they did catch heat from the black community from time to time because some people felt that they were helping to maintain these stereotypes in white people's minds. But this also paved the way for more black theater professionals to change the game completely. So it's kind of a you know, it's a Mackavellian kind

of thing, ends and means and all that. But they made a choice and they thought this was the best thing we can do for ourselves and our community, and we'll see how it plays out. And it seems like it played out well. Yeah. I think it's one of those cases of people having to swallow their teeth so they can take a seat at the table and make more room for other people who maybe hopefully it would not have to swallow their teeth as much, and so forth.

It's like sacrificing for the progress. I'm a very impatient person when it comes to like social change. I am definitely I am definitely, like always screaming at the news, like, but why does it takes along? Just do it now, just tomorrow, have it be different. It's not hard, and I believe that it's not. But at the same time, I've also had to recognize the value of incremental change, and uh, the I don't even want to say necessity because I really still don't think it is necessary, but um,

it has been in the past. You've seen incremental change work. So sometimes you just like, well, let's get a little done, and then we'll get a little more done, and then a little more and eventually we'll have something to finish. I know, right, But it's like it's one of those things where you're like people take a long time to change, and then systems take even longer to change because they're full of people who take a long time to change. So it's like, you know, it's just a pile of

time on top of time and slowness and type of slowness. No, I just have and I did ever get finished either, because every time, you know, you get somewhere, you're like, great, that's where I wanted to get, and it's still not far enough. Yeah. Yeah. And in realizing that I was in a horrible situation now that I'm out of it, I realized that that was stacked underneath ten other horrible things. Yeah, you just had to deal with the first horrible thing

and then oh good, I'm not enslaved anymore. Wait a second, I can't open up bank account, you know, like that it's not And during segregation too, was like so extra annoying because it was like you're separate but equal, so just go make your own thing, and so black people were like, great, I'll go make my own thing. And then white people are like, I don't like that you have your own things, go in and like fucking destroy it. So it's like, well, what I thought, that's what you

said you wanted me to do. I was over in my own corner here, and now you're up in my corner. I don't know, We're just dumb. History can be very frustrating, especially looking at social change. Uh, let's take a break. Oh okay, let's let's marinate on that a little, but for a second, come back and get back to this story, because otherwise we're going to go off, uh and just be like white people fixing racism on our podcast. We should probably dial that back. Yeah, we'll get back to

the story right after this. Yeah, welcome back to the show, everybody. Okay. So the Bert Williams and George Walker duo was first added to a struggling musical called The gold Bug in the show closed like pretty much as soon as they were cast a week or two later. I wanted to see that. I don't know if you did well. I

guess that was very good. So yeah, The gold Bug was consigned to the Broadway trash Bin, but the Williams and Walker act got really good reviews their particular section of the show, so they were able to get a gig at another theater for a thirty six week run, and that is a really good run. And they were also approached by a tobacco company to pose for advertisements. But the company wanted two women on the poster as

well as the two gentlemens. So George was dating a dancer named Stella at the time, so she came along the photo shoot and she brought her friend, a beautiful, independent, extremely talented performer named Aida Overton. Now I I did the research for this episode, and I found I found several sources said she started her life as Aida Overton and then changed her name later to Aida, but they didn't seem to agree on that. So one said it was just a typo in the census and her name

was always Aida, or it was just a mistake. Another said she changed it to match the Haitian goddess of fertility and rainbows. Then we saw another thing that said she changed it because another Aida joined the crew, joined the cast, so she wanted to be had an eye into her name to make it different, right, So I'm not sure the true story because again these sources don't agree.

So I'm just gonna call her Aida Overton throughout the episode, and of which means I'm gonna be singing Aida in my head the whole time, because that's not a song from Aida. I don't know what you just said. I don't. I've never seen Aida. It's so good. First of all, theater. I mean, you know, it's Elton John's musical about the slaves in Egypt, so take that for what it is. But it's it's, you know what, the thing about Aida.

It's my favorite Elton John album because that whole show is just straight up Elton John music and it's great, and I there should have I would love to see it with an Egyptian cast and not Adam Pascal. But but I definitely played that soundtrack to Death in high school and then I saw it at the Fox. It was good. It wasn't great, but it was good, all right. I guess I should listen it is it is an iconic musical. I'm not a big musical person, so I

never come into it. But it's an Atlanta staple technically because they premiered it here before it went to Broadway, and um, they had this big mechanical moving pyramid that moved around the stage that was apparently constantly breaking down the whole performances without it or with it stationary anyway, I'm going I'm getting into Aida. Yeah, that's not this

is about so. Aida Overton was born in New York on Valentine's Day, and the Library of Congress says she quote was a child who seemed to have danced before she walked, so her parents got her into musical training early, and she joined her first black touring group at the age of fifteen, and a few years later she joined Black Patty's Troubadours, which was a troop owned and operated by Matilda Cceretta Joiner Jones Cisiretta Jones was a soprano who was called the Black Patty as a reference to

a famous Italian opera singer named Adelina Patty. And she had a major impact on Aida because she was why wasn't Adelina Patty the attack Allien Cicretta, Well you know why? Well, yeah, you know why? You why? I don't know if maybe Adelina came first, no idea, but you know, I still. So anyways, Cieretta Jones had a major impact on Aida because she was a black woman who owned her own company.

She sang at the White House for President Benjamin Harrison, and she was the highest paid black entertainer of her time. So Ida was definitely like, let me take some notes. But right before this tobacco ad thing came up, Aida had a bad experience when the management and the performers kind of went head to head over some pay dispute, and Aida was just not like she was not trying to get into all that. She was not trying to

get into some arguments. She said, no more drama in my life, like Mary J. Blige, and she decided to retire from the stage for good. So when she accepted this cigarette ad gig, she figured it's just a one time job. She post some photos, get her cash, move on. She says, this is uh. She says, I'll do one more job. And that said, just like Danny Ocean, like this, I'm getting out of the game for good. After this, this will be enough to retire on Tahiti. I'll move

on to something completely different. Well, Burton George had a different idea because they have been looking for a hook for their vaudeville act, and they thought they found one. It's called the cake walk dance. Now, the cake walk has its roots in West African tribal traditions, according to Camille Forbes, but in America it was inextricably linked with slavery.

Enslave people would dress up in their finest clothing and do this partnered dance, and then the funniest or most impressive or amazing or accomplished moves would win the prize, which was a cake. Be The question is who takes the cake? Oh Tuesday from Okay? Who takes the game? All? Right? Now, usually these dances would be judged by their enslavers, but it quickly evolved into a satire of the enslavers, although

they probably didn't pick up on it. The dancers would mimic all this fussy bowing and curtsying and all the overly formal and poised movements of the white dances like the waltz or the minuet, really just making fun of all these properness. Yeah. Now, white entertainers in their minstrel shows almost always included a similar dance to a cake walk that they called it a walk about or a strut, and they were usually a big feature in the show, so George and Burt knew that they should add one

to their act too. And there's a real sublime irony here that Camille Forbes talks about in introducing Burt Williams. She said, quote the dance thereby became the performance of white entertainers in black face who imitated a black dance

create it to lampoon whites. By the time Williams and Walker performed it, the irony was even further heightened or deepened, as these black performers now performed a dance imitating whites who mocked blacks who satirized whites pretentious and fussy mannerisms. It's me, you copy me, I'm gonna copy. Now, I'm gonna copy the copy, and then you copy the copy of the copy, and then but your copy is better.

I'm mocking what you stole from me. I stole from you, you stole back from me, and now I'm making fun of you. For that's pretty great. And it's so it's just that ship made me laugh so hard. It's like we're making Oh, let's make fun of black people. It turns out they're making fun of us the whole time. But we didn't know that because again, that's superiority. They

just could never assume. I think they just couldn't put it in their minds that enslaved people would have an opinion of about them or be able to, I don't know, think of them in a satirical way or whatever. Like. They just wouldn't be able to see that irony. Um. But it was the white people who didn't see it, you know. Anyway, So George went to ask Aida Overton to join Williams and Walker and she said no, She's

said that was it alpha good? So George actually had to visit her several times with different proposals and really persist before she finally agreed to join. And it would be the best decision of George's life. We'll find out why right after this break. All right, welcome back to the show. All right. So the inclusion of two women in the Williams and Walker acts would set them apart all by itself. But Ida was something special. I cannot

stress this enough. She would quickly become their leading choreographer, and she had a star power that just held audiences spellbound. You can't not get enough for her. You can't, don't exactly, And I'm sure George thought because he was a pretty sad producer, and he was like, people want to look at you, and that's just the truth. And if you have that, you can be even not very talented and still have a good career. Right. But like she was

also incredibly talented. She's also beautiful, gorgeous, say gorgeous person. We've been reading this whole story and this is the first time I've googled her, and she is I don't know what the word is. Yeah, it's very beautiful. I want to watch whatever she's doing. In one of her pictures, she looks a lot like I want to say, Zazzi beats how to pronounce her name. I know it's wrong, but she's amusing because she was saying it's not Zay. I think it's just bits Ba. Yeah, well she's awesome.

She might she might do it our journey small leads I know can sing. Maybe she would be a good choice. I don't know. Somebody make this movie and you tell me who should player, because I will watch it that. Camille Forbes writes, quote Ada in particular, made a difference that not only equal great success for Williams and Walker, but also created a national craze for the cake walk.

Although Williams and Walker were not the cake walks innovators, by the time they were done popularizing it, their names would be forever linked with the dance. The first time they performed the cake walk is part of their vodellact. It was just Stella and Ada on stage with George and Burst, but within a month they had added dozens of dancers to the bill. Um. They had incredible moves. Sometimes they would bend over backwards until their heads almost

touched the floor. Um. Sometimes they were performed with buckets of water on their heads and danced ecstatically and energetically without spilling a single drop. Like it was just insange stunts. You know. People are like, I can't believe what I'm looking at. And through eight ninety eight they tore their acts throughout the nation, with the cake walk as their big show sopper. They received incredible acclaim and they rose

to the top of the bob bill scene. Ata was even being invited by white society elites to teach them to cake walk in private lessons, which helped maintain its popularity. She even wrote an article about it to like show tell people how to do it. But people were obsessed,

like they were really interested. So by eight they were established and they were successful, and George and Bert decided that they were going to rent an elegant apartment on fifty third Street in New York City, and this was in the middle of what was called Black Bohemia, and they wanted to make this the central gathering place for any black man who wanted to make a career in theater.

George Walker wrote that quote, by having these men around, we have the opportunity to study the musical and theatrical ability of the most talented members of our race. He's like, you know what I need the most talented black people there is. How about I just throw open my doors and welcome them to me, and they'll come to me. I mean, having a good central hangout spot is beneficial for any artistic community, you know, or people to show

up and exchange ideas. I mean, I'm thinking about the factory, thinking about a ton of different Broadway locations, East Village in general. You know, like and you like, yeah, you meet people to collaborate with and you'll come up with things and you work on stuff and just having the fellowship period, even if you do no work together, it's just nice to hang out with people, like like a fringe festival, you know, like that might be a good

place for artists to convene. If only someone I knew organized and operated one of those, I would marry her in a second. And um, although I want to ask they specifically say men here, they were not inviting to women performers, I didn't see that they did. Particularly. Things were just so gendered at this time that I think if you had an organization, it was a fraternal organization, it was a men's group. It was business was for men.

So I think it's not that different. But like the image of theater, you know, and you're thinking of, like, all these are men, and we hang around and we smoked cigars and we talked about what Broadway performance we're going to do next week, you know. But you know, that's so opposite of the image I grew up with about what theater is. But then you get into theater and you're like it's still male dominated dominated definitely. Alright, So at this time, black acts were only given a

single slot on a vaudeville bill. At this was meant to limit black entertainers influence and also to limit the number of black people in the audience as well. Yeah, stated goal by the way like this, It wasn't just like, oh we figured out there the real reasons for doing it. They were open about it was a feature. Now, George and Burt knew that to build a real career they would need to put up their own really big show.

And thanks to this meeting place that they've created, they were in the best company possible to form their own production team, which they called the Williams and Walker Company, and they started producing full length musicals. Some of their frequent collaborators were composer will Marion Cook or playwright Jesse A. Ship and the poet and lyricist Paul Lawrence Dunbar and

Ida was their leading choreographer. Yeah, Paul Lawrence Dunbar I have a little bit of a connection with because in my high school we actually performed his poem We Wear the Mask Kidding. We studied it and we we uh like put it up as part of one of our shows that we did. Um. But yeah, he's it was it was cool to learn a little bit more about him. He's not much in this episode because we had too much to go over. But he's an interesting guy. Look

him up all right. Now. George was the business savvy spokesman type in this group, and both he and Bert insisted that they were only going to produce quality theater, elaborate sets, big fancy props, costumes and lighting on par with the white theaters. They wanted to elevate the professionalism of black theater and encourage black people to pursue theatrical careers. They also paid good salaries to their artists and their

stage hands. Now look at that, we're talking about an abstract support of a place to gather together and like very like encouraging, like we can do better, we can do the best. We don't have to do these stereo types. It's kind of an abstract support in that, but it was paired up with a very real, solid financial support of money, good wages, which you need. Both so important. It's been so hard, there's been a real um, it's

been a real reckoning. And I feel like in Atlanta, at least in the last few years, UM, we've been saying, look, you have to pay people. I know you're a low budget theater company, but you got to find it. Otherwise you're not a little budget theater company, you know, like not a company. Yeah. I mean there's like we had a theater company for you know, still technically and and we did shows for well over a decade, um, you know,

mostly not paying ourselves at all. It was just like we take our ten dollar ticket sales, we put them back into account. We used that to paint the sets next time. Um. And we all knew that going into it. And there wasn't like one person in charge getting paid while no one else did or anything like that. Um. But uh, and and that's okay. I know a lot of artists are like, look, they're still projects you do for the love, sure, sure, or like to get yourself

established or can write folks or whatever. There's plenty of reasons to work for free. It's just that people will do it to exploit you, and they're like, your talent is the reason I'm making money. So it was people kind of going, well, then, my talent is worth money right right exactly now. In The New York Age, which was one of the most prominent black newspapers of its time, they would later call George Walker quote the commander in

chief of the Black theatrical Forces. Pretty cool, Pretty cool. Their first full length show was called The Senegambian carnival Um. It's described in the books Spread and Rhythm Around Black Popular Songwriters from as being about George's dandy character trying to con Bert's character out of some gold that Bert's character had found in a Laska. But that plot quote served mainly as a clothes line to hang song and Dan numbers on. So they hadn't quite got to like

a story, you know, a full story. It's more of a through line exactly. Yeah. And it toured successfully for a few months in Boston, d c. And Cincinnati. During this tour, Bert started courting a widowed actress eight years older than him named Lottie Thompson Latti Dotti dog In. He surprised George by announcing that he had married Lottie in a private ceremony, and I wonder if George was like, man,

I want to come, I'm your friends. Uh. Burt and Lottie would stay together for the rest of Bert's life. They never had any children of their own, but they did adopt and raised three of Lottie's nieces, and they opened their home to orphans and foster children at just

like sweet romance between these two. But Burt was not the only one hit with Cupid zero because George and Ada had been falling in love during their two years before arming together, and in June they got married when she was nineteen and he was twenty six, and Ada became Aida Overton Walker, which is the name she's best

known as now. Their next show was called Sons of Ham and this was a force about two bums who get mistaken for twin airs to a fortune that, according to an article by Lily Johnson on Dartmouth Dot ETU, was written as just a general plot outline so Burton George could add lib and improvised throughout. They're just like, oh, we're two bums who are now rich. Hi, what's gonna happen? Now? Give me an emotion and a fruit it. Yeah, that's pretty fun. Yeah. Just the first thing that popped into

my head was trading places. I know it's a little difference, but you know, making bums rich and seeing what they do with it is a classic story. I also wonder if they joked a little about the twins thing, because they were not meant to be related, and I don't think their characters were related, So I wonder if they had any any humor in that of like y'all think we look alt, Oh yeah, that's okay, we're twins. Give

us this money. That's good. I don't know. Unfortunately, there's no book to read of it or anything, but it's I like to think that they had a good moment, that a good little bit with that. Now, brit and George had a friend in the audience who would write down jokes and slapstick that that worked, that hit that's brilliant, and that helped Williams and Walker learned what their audiences liked, and that helped them keep what worked and lose what

didn't in their shows. Brilliant because you can't always tell. Sometimes you're on stage and you're like, man, they are not responding at all right now, And then you talk to someone who was in the audience later and they're like, I was dying. We were all laughing our asses off.

You can't always get it. So that's very clever, it is, and it's one of the beauties of theater, to be honest, because you're doing the show over and over and over again, and they're like, so let's change it, let's fix it. I mean, we'll put it up and then what doesn't work, don't do it tomorrow, you know what I mean. It's very stand up. Yeah, I hear. I was just listening to the Patton as well to talk about that. He's like, you know, you'll do your show and you'll write down

what works. He said, he was talking about taping a special. He was like, I tape this special, and of course the five times after that that I did this show was so much better. Yeah, And I know you always wish that, Like, I mean, that's just true live performance all the time. You want to keep changing it because you're always finding good things that work and things that didn't. As long as you keep working on it, I'll always get better. Well well if you're if you do it

right in theory. In addition to cutting out what didn't work, they also cut all the black stereotypical characters. They were well known to vaudeville audiences. We already know that Burton George hated those kind of characters from the start, and they worked to subvert the stereotypes of black men on stage and also Aida totally refused to play stereotypes she said she would only portray black women as dignified and

well rounded. Good for her, but she's like, I know what I'm worth, and it's more than this and well and and it was so much about the culture. You know, Unfortunately, if you're from a marginalized population, you don't everything you do is not just you representing everybody else, which is an extra weight that is not shouldn't be there, but

it's just the fact of the matter. And Steve really felt all all three of them really felt like we can use we're right in front of a bunch of white people all the time, we can use this to help every black person in the nation. And so they really felt they really felt like they could make some changes. I'll borrow a story I just heard, uh Carrie Washington give on on our Friends Jason and Sean and Will's

podcast SmartLess Friends of the Show. Um. She was on that, and she said that when she got Scandal, when she was cast on Scandal, she was the first um Black woman in a leading role on a on an hour long drama. She was like, I know that if I don't do this right, it'll be another forty years before this happens again. Wow. And I was like, damn, that is so much extra weight to have to carry. That's outrageous.

Can you imagine? I can't. I'm like blown away that it took that long for there to be a leading actress in an hour long drama. That it was just scandal, which pretty recent. That's wild, but it's true. It's just like a female director. You know, you're like, well, if this movie is amazing, people will say it's because of some guy, and if it's bad, they'll say it's because of me. And no one will give a movie to a woman ever. Again. We tried that once. It didn't

work exactly. I'm like, how many bad movies and men made and they get a million other chances. We've all made bad movies, and you know what you need next time? Probably more money. That'll help. I'll fix it. So, all that being said, they decided they were going to move away from their minstrel roots into fuller, more human comedy styles. Yeah, they're really realizing their dreams. You know, they're getting there now.

Aida got a ton of fame during this show with her rendition of a song called Hannah from Savannah, and she brought this song up to an instant hit, and she got national attention for her voice and her graceful dance mastering. Plus Bert's rendition of a song good Morning Carrie made that one of the biggest hits of nineteen o one, and that was covered by several artists, so multiple nationwide hit songs came out of this show. Still, the world had its way of her mind in them

that they were second class citizens in America. The New Yorker says that back when they were on the minstrel circuit, both Bert and George barely escaped a Colorado mining camp where they were performing when they were accused of being more well dressed than a black man had the right to be, and they were stripped of their clothing by

this mob. Some like jealousy because they're in a mining camp, so I'm assuming the miners maybe didn't have nice clothes and they were like, why do you have something nice? And I don't. That's what sounds like to me, which got some jealousy in it, I think definitely. In August of nineteen hundred, all these hysterical rumors started spreading around New York that a white detective had been shot by

a black man. This caused a riot, and George did not know about this and he got caught up in it and was yanked off of a street car and beaten by a white mob. Just still like, no matter they're fame levels or anything like that, they're still being like we said, reminded constantly, don't forget where a lot of people in this country want you to be right. And it's like on stage you're a god, but off stage you're just another black guy, and I don't care.

It's like as Sons of Ham ran for about sixteen performances, they did eight ninet and eight in nineteen o one. The meanwhile, the team of Williams and Walker were hard at work on their next show in Dahomey, where their characters are con men who traveled to the African country of Dahomey to colonize it along with a group of poor black people. And this was the first full length show to open at an indoor venue on Broadway, entirely written,

produced and performed by black people. And there's a great story where George Walker said that he was playing to an East Side audience and he was like singing a song, and he said, one day I'll sing this on Broadway and they all laughed, and like a month later they were on Broadway. So I love that amazing he manifested it even cooler than that, it was a major hit and charters. In her book Nobody, The Story of Burt Williams,

wrote that critics noted that quote. All Burt Williams had to do was look at the audience and it went into spasms promptly, which makes me think of how sen Apparently now these days we'll write a sketch and they'll just go Keenan cut to Keenan. Keenan reacts like Keenan Thompson whatever. So good. I mean, all he has to do is make a little face man, and I'm on

the floor. So good. He's got Burt Williams energy. But to be fair, I was I've been a lifelong Keenan fan because my favorite show as a kid was all that I never saw, Oh my god, and his bit about his bits like the frenchman in the bathtub doing it was everyday French with Pierre's Marco, and he just read the most ridiculous He'd be like, he'd be like, I'm doing did you French? Today? We learned to say what does this fish doing in my mayonnaise jar? Was

very useful. It would take in French first and then reveal what the ridiculous phrase was and then do his whole keenan comedy legend. Forever be a fan. Well anyway, Burt Williams was getting praised for his comedy stylings and Aa became known as the Queen of the cake Walk.

One vaudeville performer Tom Fletcher wrote in his autobiography that she was a dancer quote who could do almost anything, and no matter whether it was a fucking wing cake wop or even some form of grotesque dancing, she lent the performance and made gracefulness of movement which was unsurpassed by anyone. Tom Fletcher, by the way, was a black Fodeville performer, and he wrote his autobiography One hundred Years of the Negro in Show Business. It was published in

nineteen four. It's like the only eyewitness account of black performers at the turn of the century, and apparently it's used as a source by like most theater historians. So that's a book I'd like to read. Tom Fletcher. Ladies and Gent's into Homie played for fifty three performances on Broadway. That's pretty good, before touring throughout England and Scotland, where they were so popular. They ended up doing a command perform Our Months for the King and Queen of England

at Buckingham Palace for Edward the eighth ninth birthday. Edward the eighth would later go on to abdicate the crown, to marry a divorcee, and also become a fascist. So this is kind of funny. He's became a big white supremacist. But for his ninth birthday they were like, let's watch in Dahomie. I wish it had done more for him his mindset. So this was like the most popular musical in London. It even became the first black musical to

have its score published in in the UK. That is, it was still not published in the US because we're still on our bullshit and aristocrats. They are also paid Aita to teach them private lessons in the cake Walk, like she was doing in the US Library of Congress,

writes quote. In the cake Walk, Williams and Walker had found a quintessential black modernist expression high art worthy of being performed before royalty for the white elite and on the concert stage, Aida Overton Walker provided the dance with new gloss, converting it from its past in lower class black dance halls that referenced the old slave culture to

being an icon of the modern concert hall. And after a year they returned to America and went on a forty week tour across the United States and with this massive, massive hit, i mean worldwide hit, everyone involved became household name that includes George Walker, Burt Williams, Ida Overton Walker, will Marian Cook, Jesse Ship, and Paul Lawence Dunbar like, everyone involved were famous, so awesome. It's just so cool to see how how they did that incremental change. Right

they started off in minstrel shows. They were like, well, do your stupid thing. Now we'll do our Roadville show where we still do your stupid thing, but a little less stupidly. And then now we're doing our own musicals and we're just not going to do your stupid thing all We're just gonna show black people in black culture and you're gonna enjoy it. And they fucking did because

it was so good. That's so cool now, Lily Johnson on Dartmouth Dot E du writes that their success within Dahomie helped George and Burt quote develop a formula for their musicals, Fanciful Locations, big chorus numbers, featuring Aida over Tin Walker in a leading role, and a whole evening of laughs before the clowning hard look Simpleton Williams finally got wise to the fast talking dandy Walker, and I love that they were like, okay, listen, we wanna we

want to be successful. Aida has to have a solo. Aida has to be one of the main She is the main attraction, so we've got to put her all over this bitch. Of course. I love that you don't put Michael Jordan in a movie and he doesn't play basketball, You don't put you don't put Ryan Gosling in something and he doesn't take his shirt off? Does he know? Did you take a shirt off? And Gray Mane like he always gets a shirt off at some point. Yeah, he got shot and they like banaged him up. You

know they always do that. It's it's for us, Yeah, it's for you. It's for all of us, always, for all of us. Whatever. I has never never been a big Ryan Gosling fan, But this isn't about him, No, it's not way to make this great episode about black people about a white guy throwaway reference to Ryan Gosling America's Sweetheart. No, I actually I love in my mind at a teaching the cakewalk dance to all these rich white aristocrats is just like, it's what am I picturing.

I'm seeing like somebody teaching a bunch of rich white people the Superman or something, you know, at a wedding. But it's just like so embarrassing and she has to be like, no, you're doing a great job, and they look ridiculous. I don't know if it was that, but that's what it is. In my mind. I thought about like TikTok dances, because you know, there's so many TikTok dances that come from black creators and it's amazing sharp,

really dope choreography. And then you'll see I think people were making fun of like Addison ray On Jimmy Fallon because she came on to teach him some of these tech shook dances and she was like, like, not good. It was barely as good. If you see them side by side, you're like, what is the comparison? And so it was just it was like I was just picturing these they're bending over backwards with their heads touching the ground.

You know, I know white person did that, like you know, so they must have been doing a very lame version of it. In comparison, Geralds, my head touched the ground just like a over. In my childhood, they would play musical chairs and whoever one they want a cake, whoever won, and they just called a cake walk. That what I thought was a cake walk a long time. And then yeah, I did this episode and I was like, oh, that's not what a cake walk is. Apparently it has its

roots in Americans slavory. Why did anyone tell me? I think it's so interesting that this elaborate dance for people who bending a records, touching their heads in the ground, or having buckets of water on their head not spilling any it's called a cake walk. And now a cake walk means something easy, easy, Yes, right, I guess that's

deliberately ironic. Maybe so maybe so well, And I will say they talked a lot about how like Bird and George had some incredible moves to where I mean, they were like, most of these reviews are from white people, so they're like, he'll just pop his I'll blow out and his legs will go in opposite directions, and I just don't even know how he's doing this. You know, how are your body moved like that? And then he

couldn't believe it. Um, But they made it look so easy. Yeah, They're like, it just looks so so simple, and you know, I don't know how you doing it, but you're making

it look really easy. So I wonder if, yeah, there's an added irony of like it's a cake walk, but it's actually kind of hard, right, right, There's got to be something there about sort of being detached from white culture, like so much of white performance at the time is based in its own history, Like I have to be building on this of the past, or I have to even be reforming what we've already done, or or improving what we've already you know, there's rules and things I

have to follow, and these guys come in and they're like, I don't need to do an I'm gonna try something different, entirely different new styles that that break convention because I'm not living in the same conventions as you. And that's why there shows are able to be so impressive, especially to white people. Who are like, well, I've never even considered something different than what I'm used to before, and

it blows their minds. And then they have, you know, they have so many, so much incentive to put themselves fully into this work and really create something impressive that's going to stand out and and earn them, you know, the recognition and the money that they deserve for it. So it just I feel like you can see the

inherent drive that makes these shows so incredible. Yeah, yeah, I mean they're putting ten times the amount of effort and heart right and passion because I mean, partly because they have to, and partly because if they don't do it, who's going to do it? You know, like, no one else, no one else is trying to put a bunch of black shows up on Broadway but me. So let me do this and do it to the best of my ability, which is pretty damn good. So you're gonna be blown

away by me, you know. I just think they're just so cool. I love them, and I love seeing how they're little steps. You know, they really I don't know if they really had like a master plan or anything, but you can see their little steps and how they kept continuing like every show they would push a little bit more and a little bit more against what everyone wanted to see or what they thought they wanted to see,

because they always loved what they were given. So even if it was like, you know, even if it was a show making fun of white people, white people liked it. You know, they're just like, I love it. Whatever you want to show, we I'm into it, you know. I guess that's a question I have to was their audience

perpetually predominantly white? It depended on the venue, because the venues were all segregated, of course, so early on they performed only for black audiences, and then when they would get they would be like the George Sorry, Williams and Walker would be like the only black act on a vaudevilla bill, and that would be for white audiences. In in England and Scotland, it was a lot of white people. You know, it just kind of tended theaters. But they

did play for white audiences, which is pretty impressive. Yeah, well, and I wonder how different those shows were too. I'm gonna be like, all right, we can we don't have to worry about the white people in the audience for this show. So we're can have a little more fun or something. Maybe I do wonder that would make sense, right if you were, if you were in a room that felt really safe. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you you

pushed the boundaries more and made different jokes. But yeah, I guess that brings us to the end of part one our episode, because at this point, you know, we got Williams and Walker there there. They can only go up, they can only go up from here. They're already like blown people's minds, and they have more to give, even more to give. So we will tackle the rest of their career highs and lows, tragic lows, um in our

next episode. And I really hope that you enjoyed this this part because I'm just in love with all of them, and I want a movie so badly. I'm already trying to like come up with a budget to produce a play about them or something, because I don't understand why there's not a million projects about them. They're so cool. Look, we're we're in a bit of a fight with HBO

Max right now, okay, because they're making some insane decisions. Um, but I am telling we need so badly ridiculous romance TV show at this point because I'm just like so many of these episodes and it's not this is not us, this is not like because of our skills or anything like that. It's just the stories we're digging up and

have gone largely untold. Uh that just should absolutely be at minimum movies, and some of them need supernatural length TV shows about Maximilian and carlst You're going to say that, but it's true. There's so many of them that I'm like, I don't even need to be in it, you know what I mean? An actor, of course, I'd love to be in it, but to be well, we'll be producers. We can do whatever we want, do whatever we want. We'll have a cameo and she'll get the news with

Diana Banks as you know Overton Walker. Oh no, no, no, no, no no, I would never do that. No, this is not the James at go Our Oh my god, can you believe? Well anyway, let's but yes, I hope that you loved if you have heard of Aida, Overton Walker, George Walker, Burt Williams. Already love to hear from you, and especially if we've got anything wrong, obviously love to hear that. Would love to learn more about them. We haven't had a corrections corner in some time, thank you

very much. That's what I am sitting on one. But that's just because we don't want to admit that we're wrong. Yeah, exactly know, because it'll fit into another episode. Um, but yeah, we haven't, so I'm very happy about that. But if there's anything and here, obviously please do you know, reach out.

But if you've never heard of them, I hope that you fell in love with them the way that I did and are on edge of your seat for the end of their for the second part of their story, because it's just as awesome and fascinating and Aida is just the Beyonce of her time. She deserves many a documentary. Yeah real, I hope you enjoyed the part of this. Um, thank you so much for listening. Please reach out to us and we love to hear from you guys. Our email is ridic Romance at gmail dot com. Let's right.

Find us on Twitter and Instagram. I am at Oh great, it's Eli and I'm at Diana Mite Boom and the show is at ridic Romance. Yeah, and drop us a rating and a review on Apple podcast and we cannot wait for part two, so come back and hear the rest. Yeah, we'll catch you all then, love you bye. So long friends, it's time to go. Thanks so listening to our show? Tell your friends name's uncles in dance To listen to a show Ridiculous Role Nance