Description:

The NU Graduate Lecture and Discussion Series Presents:
Black Stand-up Comics in Chicago: Navigating a Changing City (1955-1970)
Given by: Professor Gerald Butters
Wednesday, June 2, 2021
at 5 p.m. CST
(Zoom link to join: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/91585723154)

In this talk, Professor Gerald Butters will offer an overview of his upcoming online course "Black Activism in Chicago" (Summer 2021).  Butters will discuss the game-changing impact that the Civil Rights Movement had on Black stand-up comics in Chicago from 1955-1970.   Comedians found that many established Black-dominated clubs and theaters were closing while other venues were becoming desegregated and welcoming Black artists but often with a caveat - they needed to change their material.  The careers of Moms Mabley, Nipsey Russell, and Bill Cosby with be analyzed in relation to their comedy and how they navigated this rapidly changing landscape. 

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Gerald Butters is a historian of film specializing in the intersection of race and gender in motion pictures. A Fulbright scholar, Butters has lectured on film in Romania, Luxembourg, France and Canada and at many American universities. His books include Black Manhood on the Silent Screen, Banned in Kansas: Motion Picture Censorship, 1915–1966, and the upcoming From Sweetback to Superfly: Race and Film Audiences in Chicago's Loop. He is editor of an anthology on Blaxploitation films. Butters received his PhD in History from the University of Kansas.
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FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
Hosted by the Northwestern University School of Professional Studies
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