JIMMIE DANIELS

BORN: 1907 (POSSIBLY 1908), LAREDO, TEXAS

DIED: JUNE 29, 1984, NEW YORK CITY

PERFORMER, ACTOR, BUSINESSMAN

IN LEARNING ABOUT JIMMIE DANIELS, I came to feel he led one of the most interesting lives of the Harlem Renaissance. A jack-of-all-trades, master of some. (I like to joke.) But trust, Jimmie mastered everything he touched.

Jimmie was an international cabaret singer and dancer who toured throughout Europe and the United States in his early life. Most would say his main claim to fame was the nightclub he ran in Harlem from 1939 to 1942. Many celebs of that time, both white and Black, came to the club, which he named after himself: Jimmie Daniels.

With the start of World War II, Jimmie had to close shop. He decided to enlist and, as a member of the military, performed for the troops. After the war, he continued to perform at various high-end clubs throughout the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s for patrons white, Black, heterosexual, and queer. His final performance was at the Kool Jazz Festival at Carnegie Hall, a few days before his passing in 1984. As you can see, his career was long.

What I admire most about Jimmie’s story is that there was no single moment or act that cemented his place in history. Jimmie wasn’t the first to do anything. No records broken. Yet he lived a full life with career changes, travels, men, friends, family, and so on. He was simply a talented human and performer. A lover of life and others.

For every celebrity we know of, there are people like Jimmie Daniels, everyday performers who just do the work and break down doors and pave ways. Their contributions are crucial, but rarely are they celebrated or thought of as exceptional. My grandmother Nanny was one such person. She was a nurse, a caterer, the founder of a nursery, and the head of many different organizations—she even helped raise twenty-four foster children for the state of New Jersey. All of these efforts contributed to others’ lives. I’m still leaning on all the wisdoms and words she gave me. She will never go down in the history books for simply living a full life—but she will always be in my history books. I am who I am because of people like her, my parents, my great-grandmother Lula Mae, and my grandma Mildred. The list can go on.

Jimmie was a gay man and was public about it. As discussed earlier, that was rare in those days. He had two main relationships in his life: one with a white man named Philip Johnson, an architect; and another with Kenneth MacPherson, a filmmaker married to an English heiress. Although it was illegal for Black and white people to marry in the United States at that time—yes it was illegal back then!—interracial dating did occur occasionally.

Jimmie’s interracial love life lies at the center of a racist incident that occurred when he performed at the Blue Whale Bar in the Pines, a community on Fire Island, New York. (For those who need a visual: Fire Island is a long, thin barrier island on the southern side of Long Island, with various neighborhoods that have a history of catering to the gay community.) He was living there at the time with his lover, a white man named Rex Madsen. Rex used to throw lavish parties at his home in the Pines. It seemed like there wouldn’t be an issue for Jimmie in this community—until there was.

One night, they heard a noise outside. By the time Jimmie and Rex came out, there was a group of white men burning a cross in front of the house. As you probably know, a burning cross was a common symbol of hatred used to cause fear in Black folks, often placed by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

Fire Island is known as a safe space for gay men. In 2022, there was even a queer movie retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice set there called Fire Island. But not everyone talks about the island’s racist undertones.

I have literally never been to Fire Island because, even today, it is still riddled with the same racism that many of my ancestors dealt with. It remains a largely white space. I have many Black friends who have gone and still go and navigate the dangers of racism there. Some Black queer people have even formed advocacy groups in an attempt to shift the island’s culture to be more inclusive. And I’ve heard it’s “not as bad as it used to be.” But what is not-as-bad racism?

That’s the hardest part about being Black and queer: You are never just fighting one oppression. You are always forced to fight against something, even in spaces that are supposed to be safe for you. If you are in Black spaces, you can be condemned for your queerness. If you are in queer spaces that are predominantly white, you will likely be facing racism. And even when you are in Black queer spaces, if you are too fat, or too femme, or too dark, or too [insert quality here], you will face some form of harm. But despite these pressures, Jimmie Daniels lived openly as both Black and queer.

There are many people you may never meet but whose lives you will change in some tangible way because you choose to live yours as you do. As an author, I often get emails, comments, cards, and posts telling me how my work has healed people. How I was able to put into words what they have always wanted to say but didn’t know how.

For every person who does reach out, I know there are likely ten more who didn’t but still had that same experience. People like Jimmie make me think hard about that. Jimmie was a public figure whom many admired even if they never said it or acknowledged it. Jimmie paved the way for other nightclub owners and cabaret dancers even if he never knew it. There are always people who break barriers in the face of oppression. I think about Jimmie the same way I think about Pauli Murray, a non-binary Black person who boycotted buses years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in 1955, sparking the Montgomery bus boycotts. Jimmie became the possibility model for closeted queer people. He was the alternative ending.