The Clark Brothers are but one of many hundreds of performers who graced the stages and screens of Britain’s cultural landscape in the years after the Second World War. These performers consisted not just of home-grown talent but also included a large contingent from the United States of America, who escaped the racist Jim Crow segregation laws that severely limited their ability to practise their craft at home, and found a more receptive social and cultural climate in the UK for appreciation of their talents.
The experiences of blatant injustice that these performers brought with them also served to galvanise them into supporting or sometimes even creating civil rights activities in the UK. Though the form of discrimination in the UK was less aggressive and overt than in the States, it was nevertheless clear that the black performers did not have the same opportunities or profile as their White contemporaries. Nevertheless, the ones who shone were indeed stellar and headlined venues all over the country. They were men, they were women, they were solo or in groups – and many are no longer with us, their lives uncelebrated and underappreciated by generations of artists today who unknowingly walk a pathway of stars etched into the cultural firmaments by ephemeral giants.
Here we pay tribute to some of these artistes. Indeed, they are legends.