The two would have written a lot more songs, but Bob Cole died at a young age.
Bert Williams and George Nash Walker made a musical play by the name of "In Dahomey" in 1902. This was the first black show ever to open on Broadway at the New York Theatre in Times Square. This show was followed by many more like "In Abyssinia" in 1906 and "Bandanna Land" in 1908. Bandanna Land was their last show because George Nash Walker became ill and never appeared on stage again. It was the last show to appear on Broadway for nearly a decade.
Broadway, which is the center of the American theater, had been closed to blacks for more than a decade, until the all black musical Shuffle Along became a smash hit. Some historians believe that the Shuffle Along in 1921 became the start of the whole Harlem Renaissance.
A lady by the name of Rose McClendon was named the "Black First Lady of Theater". She was on the board of the Theater Union and directed the Harlem Experimental Theater. She also organized the Negro People's theater, which was the beginning of modern black theatre movement.
Writers like Phillis Wheatley, Sojourner Truth, Fredrick Douglass, W.E.B Dubois, Gwendolyn Brook, Zoral Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, James Baldwin and many more writers have paved the way for the work's of African American literature. The term "African American Literature" is understood by most as Sub-Saharan (East and West) Africa. The primary source of language for this literature is European not Africa, which is also known as radical anomaly. African participants in colonial administrations in Africa began producing written works of literature in European languages. The social involvement of African writers has been well researched and documented over the years.
The existence of black theater really became big when the Harlem Renaissance came around during 1915. Black theater originally began in African, but then came around to New York in a city by the name of Harlem.
