Josh White - at The Cafe Society

At The Cafe Society

It is impossible to divorce White's unprecedented rise to international fame in the 1940s from the Cafe Society nightclub. Located in New York's Greenwich Village, the Cafe Society was the first integrated nightclub in the United States, where blacks and whites could sit, socialize and dance in the same room and enjoy entertainment. It opened in late 1938 with a three-month engagement of Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, Billie Holiday and comedian Jack Gilford, immediately making it New York's hottest club.

One day, John Hammond asked White to meet Barney Josephson, the owner of the club. As soon as Josephson heard White and saw the charisma he exuded, he told Hammond that White was going to become the first black male sex symbol in America. It was Josephson who decided at that first encounter, on the stage apparel he would have designed for White - that would become a trademark for years to come - a black velvet shirt open to the stomach and silk slacks. While starring at the Cafe Society over the next decade and becoming exposed to audiences, performers and beautiful music from around the world, White expanded his musical interests and repertoire to include a variety of styles which he would then subsequently record. He had remarkable success in popularizing recordings with a diverse group of musical genres, which ranged from his original repertoire of the Negro blues, gospel and protest songs, to Broadway show tunes, cabaret, pop, and white American, English and Australian folk songs.

The Greenwich Village club was so successful that Josephson soon opened a larger Cafe Society Uptown, at which White also performed, gaining him recognition by the New York Times as the "Darling of Fifth Avenue". The Roosevelt family, New York society, international royalty, and Hollywood stars regularly came to see White at the Cafe Society, and he used his fame and visibility to create, foster and develop relations between blacks and whites, making him a national figure and voice of racial integration in America.

He was thought to have numerous romantic liaisons with wealthy society women, singers, and Hollywood actresses, but the rumors were never substantiated. The women in question always referred to White as their close friend, and Lena Horne and Eartha Kitt also referred to him as a mentor.

The Cafe Society made White a star and put him in a unique position as an African American man. However, because of the club's unique social status of mixing the races, it also became a haven for New York's social progressives whose politics leaned to the Left. As it played a vital role in White's ascendance to stardom, it would also one day play a crucial role in his fall from grace.