Sissle and Blake

SISSLE AND BLAKE . The first major black songwriters to break the Broadway color barrier; Noble Lee Sissle, b. Indianapolis, Indiana, July 10, 1889, d. Tampa, Florida, December 17, 1975; James Hubert Eubie Blake, b. Baltimore, Maryland, February 7, 1883; d. Brooklyn, New York, February 12, 1983.

Sissle (lyrics) and Blake’s (music) Broadway shows were the first to employ blacks in the theater with a minimum of stereotyping and without resorting to weak imitations of European operettas...