'Shuffle Along' Creates the Template for Black Broadway Musical Comedy

The 1921 Broadway success of 'Shuffle Along' by Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, Flournoy Miller, and Aubrey Lyles—the first Black-written, Black-produced, and Black-performed musical on Broadway since Reconstruction—created immediate demand for Black musical theater. Its innovations in syncopated rhythm and energetic choreography influenced Broadway musical form generally and launched the careers of Josephine Baker and Paul Robeson.