BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY Aida Overton Walker
Image courtesy Miss Blee.
Here’s a full post on the entertainer featured in today’s photo:
Aida Overton was born in 1880 in Richmond, Virginia. She grew up in New York City. At age 15 she joined a touring group of Black performers, John Isham’s Octoroons, and later performed as a member of the Black Patti Troubadors.
In 1898, she began performing with and choreographing for famous vaudeville comedy pair Bert Williams and George Walker. She married Walker the next year. Aida and George were one of the most admired Black couples of the stage, and performed together for about a decade.
Walker and Williams’s company presented ragtime musicals with all-Black casts that contrasted with the ministrel shows of the time. Aida Walker was known for her strong roles that avoided stereotypes. She became known as the “Queen of the Cakewalk”, which was a dance based on West African traditions that George Walker and Bert Williams featured in their show. While touring in England in 1904, wealthy women invited Aida Walker to their homes to teach them the dance.
After her husband fell seriously ill, Aida Walker kept his company going for a short while before joining a new company and performing solo. Her husband died in 1911, and Aida Walker began co-starring with performer S.H. Dudley in another traveling show.
She was praised for supporting younger women performers and performing for benefits, such as one for the Industrial Home for Colored Working Girls. She produced shows in 1913 and 1914 for the up and coming Porto Rico Girls and the Happy Girls.
She died suddenly in 1914 of kidney failure. She was remembered as one of the greatest Black performers of her time.
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