and his next show was jamaica with lena horne, with an all- black cast. equality, and that is that finian's rainbow in 1947 was the first show on broadway where the chorus line consisted of blacks and whites who danced with each other, and the chorus was an integrated affair. >> what happened to him during the mccarthy era? >> well, he could not work on any major film that they wanted him to work on from the major studios in hollywood. the setup was that roy brewer, who was the head of the iatse union - i'm sorry to say that -- was the one who -- >> what do you mean? >> well, i mean this is a stagehands' union. i'd like to say good things about unions, but they get bureaucratized, and they go right-wing, you know? they get bad. this was a bad leader, and he terrorized all of the jewish moguls who were being accused of communism by the house un- american activities committee, and they yielded to whatever he said to them, out of fear that they would get branded as communists or that they'd boycott the film, alright? and so, when, you know, they called yip i

couple of small projects that i was engaged in and i did the research here at the schomburg for a lena hornhe cd and i over researched the notes and i thought this is a really interesting era and all three of these women are very important in this period so i had a whole cast of characters as they were the three who survived that cast of characte characters. >> can you talk about the time to go because i think it is an interesting moment that gets lost in a lot of our popular imaginations of harlem and the artistic moments because it comes after the harlem renaissance and the politically engaged art of the great depression. it comes before the rise of the prominent voices before the civil rights movement gets launched in a powerful way. >> sharifa and i were talking about this, harlem is always exciting so you can kind of open up any historical decade and you will find something worth our attention. certainly you did that with your work in terms of the contemporary moment. but the 40s were fascinating. you're right everything is overshadowed by the renaissance people. they are so glamorous