Nationaal Archief
In the mid-1960s, Sammy Davis Jr. ranked behind only Martin Luther King Jr. and Muhammad Ali as the most famous Black person in the world. Davis, however, was certainly the most welcome of the three in many white living rooms across the U.S.; a palatable, often upbeat presence for the white audiences whom he entertained for a living. But to remember him only for being the sole Black member of the Rat Pack, a pal of fellow crooners Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, ignores the complex relationship between Davis and Black politics during the civil rights and Black Power eras.
That’s the focus of the new book Dancing Down the Barricades from Matthew Frye Jacobson, a distinguished professor of American Studies at Yale and the author of seven previous books mostly focused on the history of race in the U.S. (Music fans might also remember his entry for the 33 1/3 series about the revolutionary folk singer Odetta.) As Jacobson explains in his new work, out this week, in addition to Frank and Dino, Davis was pals with Black leaders including King, Ali, and James Baldwin. In 1971, Davis even wore a “Free Angela Davis” button during a PBS interview in support of the movement to free the Black activist from jail. But in his varied relationships and alliances with everyone from Harry Belafonte to Richard Nixon, he oscillated between being cherished and being attacked by Black and white people alike.
Although it covers plenty of details about Davis’ public and personal life, Dancing Down the Barricades is not intended to be a complete biography of the show biz icon, who died of throat cancer in 1990. Jacobson instead identifies key periods in Davis’ rise to fame and examines his career in relation to the surrounding Black politics of the times. The result is a lively, often surprising journey that takes readers from the Harlem Renaissance through the Black Power era.