Entry · catalog no. 4331
the Charleston
/ /ðə ˈtʃɑːrlztən/ /thuh CHARLZ-tuhn
noun · Charleston, South Carolina, then Harlem · 1920s
✓ Verified
1.
The dance: knees swiveling in and out with the feet turned, arms swinging counter to the legs, weight rocking front to back. Its rhythm is the syncopated figure written into James P. Johnson's 1923 tune, and it descends from the ring shout of the Sea Islands.
“They were dancing the Charleston fifty years ago at Savannah, Georgia; at least they were dancing it twenty years ago, because that was when I learned it.”
Origin & Attribution
Black Charleston and the Gullah Geechee Sea Islands, carried to New York by longshoremen working the Ward Line and by the touring Jenkins Orphanage Band, and worked up in the San Juan Hill neighborhood in the 1910s. James P. Johnson said it himself, to Tom Davin in the Jazz Review in 1959: the people who came to the Jungles Casino were mostly from around Charleston, South Carolina, most worked for the Ward Line as longshoremen, there were even some Gullahs among them, and the Charleston was just a regulation cotillion step without a name. He composed eight Charlestons for those dancers; one of them hit Broadway. Willie The Lion Smith corroborates in Music on My Mind and calls it the Geechie step. The best contemporary receipt is Lester A. Walton in the New York World of 3 November 1924, reprinted in the Charleston Evening Post the next day: the dance was said to have been brought to New York by negroes formerly living in Charleston, having been first danced on the neighboring islands by negroes known as the Geechee. James Weldon Johnson wrote in Black Manhattan in 1930 that Runnin' Wild made use of a Negro dance creation which up to that time had been known only to Negroes. What 1923 did was codify and monetize. Runnin' Wild — an all-Black revue, book by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, music by James P. Johnson, lyrics by Cecil Mack — opened at the New Colonial Theatre in late October 1923 and ran 228 performances. Elisabeth Welch sang it; the Dancing Redcaps under Tommy Woods danced it, choreographed by Elida Webb. Welch spent her life correcting people: I just sang the song, then those terrific dancers took over.
1913
Johnson plays for Charleston longshoremen at the Jungles Casino, San Juan Hill
1923
Runnin' Wild opens at the New Colonial Theatre, late October
1924
Lester Walton reports the Geechee origin in the New York World, 3 November
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The South
Charleston, South Carolina, then Harlem · 1920s
Spoken by
Gullah Geechee of the Sea Islands and Black Charleston, then Harlem and San Juan Hill
$THECHAThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady103 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
65/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1923
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
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Citations & Sources
■
Lester A. Walton, "Can You Dance the Charleston?", New York World, repr. Charleston Evening Post p. 12 — newspaper · 3-4 Nov 1924
researched
■
Tom Davin, "Conversations with James P. Johnson," Jazz Review, p. 12 — interview · July 1959
published
■
Black Manhattan, James Weldon Johnson, pp. 189-190 — book · 1930
book
■
+ Cite a sourceMusic on My Mind, Willie "The Lion" Smith, pp. 96-97 — memoir · 1964
book
See also