William Dorsey Swann's dance parties

Banned Histories of Race in America

History is a difficult thing to communicate properly. Largely, this is because we falsely divide understanding and knowledge into nonsense categories derived from our cultural understanding of intelligence, which is a direct creation and function of white supremacy… in other words, this country tries as hard as it can in as many ways as it can as often as it can to erase its own history.  

As a musician who plays traditional Black American folk music, this is the most obvious thing in the world to me. Just the existence of the music itself reveals a truth this country avoids at all costs: there is such a thing as The Black Experience.

For me, the most complete example of art-as-history in America is the cakewalk. It began as “the prize walk”, a sort of dance competition in which enslaved Black folks would make fun of their enslavers. The best dancers would win the prize of a cake, hence the phrase “taking the cake” and the eventual naming of the dance, “the cakewalk”. Naturally, due to the nature of whiteness and appropriation, by the end of the Civil War white minstrel performers in blackface were doing the cakewalk onstage having absolutely just no idea what the fuck they were doing or what it even meant. Historical and cultural erasure as one, in action.

Speaking of which...

Ann Murray was an enslaver in Maryland in the mid 1800s. Two of the people registered as her legal property were Mary Jane Younker and her partner Andrew Jackson Swann. Mary Jane and Andrew would eventually have thirteen children. They were Protestants, but Ann was a Catholic so she forced the family she’d enslaved to be baptized and confirmed.

It’s a pretty safe bet that there was a lot of cakewalking at Ann’s expense. I say this because of the obvious circumstances, but also because Mary Jane and Andrew’s fifth child, William Dorsey Swann, grew up to throw some pretty famous parties that featured the cakewalk.

But, before we get to his parties, a quick story about William:

When William was in his early 20s, he was sentenced to six months in jail for stealing books from the Washington Library Company. Another month was added to his sentence for stealing from the home of Henry and Sara Spencer, William’s employers at the Spencerian Business College. He pled guilty, but the thing about William was that people loved him. Like really loved him.

Almost immediately after his conviction, employees at the Washington Library Company and the Spencers themselves actually petitioned the President of the United States to pardon William. The petitioners explain that he was just trying to improve his education and provide for his family. They described him as, “free from vice, industrious, refined in his habits, and associations, gentle in his disposition, courteous in his bearing…” The Spencers even offered him his job back for the rest of his life. The judge that sentenced William endorsed the petition and the pardon was recommended by the Assistant US District Attorney. It’s unclear if William ever received the pardon, but one thing is very clear: he must’ve been some kind of wizard for that many white people to go to the goddamned president on behalf of a Black man in 1882.

Now, it’s obvious that someone like William would throw incredible parties, but his went beyond. In fact, his parties were so incredible they became famous. One of the reasons they became famous is that the police regularly raided them. An 1888 police raid of one of William’s parties made the papers. He and some of the guests were arrested and charged with vagrancy and “being suspicious persons”.

Despite William’s royal demeanor, it had been common place in the South for police to break up any gathering of Black people that wasn’t in a cotton field, so William and his friends weren’t unique in being targeted. Treating Black people as “suspicious” is the very first thing police were invented to do in this country. And vagrancy laws were created to arrest Black people for being Black, which is how one could be charged with such a thing while attending a house party.

Even though William was prosecuted the usual way Black people were prosecuted, the incredible nature of William’s parties had something to do with it. From an 1888 edition of the Washington Post:

“POLICE RAID ON A DANCING PARTY

Last night a party of colored men gave a ball in a house near the corner of 12^th and F streets northwest. Most of them appeared in female attire of many colors. The dance was in progress between 11 and 12 o’clock when Lieut. Amiss, with a squad of officers, appeared, and brought the ball to a sudden termination.”

In case you didn’t catch it, William was throwing drag balls. William Dorsey Swann was the very first person on record to be called the “Queen of Drag”. His parties were known to be private, Black-only and usually attended by formerly enslaved men.

Whatever the food was at these parties, it would certainly be classified as soul food today. Whatever the music, would certainly be classified as blues today. When you think of Black American traditions, you probably consider things like soul food and blues music. You probably don’t consider drag balls in that tradition, but you should. Also, I’ll give you one guess as to a type of dance being done at William Dorsey Swann’s drag balls. I hope you guessed cakewalking.

William continued organizing drag balls, and the police continued raiding them. Eventually the police discovered that one of William’s drag balls was not Black-only. As reported in an 1896 edition of the Evening Star:

“There were several colored men and one white man reported to be of the character of Swan [sic], and during the trial of the case in court there appeared young men of respectable parentage who told of how they had visited this place, danced and indulged in strong drink of all kinds from beer to champagne.”

Despite absolutely no evidence of William engaging in any kind of sex work, he was convicted of running a brothel and sentenced to ten months in prison. Shortly into his sentence, William’s health began to decline and so his community once again petitioned the president for a pardon. But this time, on top of being Black he was also an outed drag queen convicted on false charges. The president declined to pardon, essentially stating that William’s offense was too great to consider his health.

But the Queen of Drag didn’t die in prison. William lived for almost another thirty years or so, throwing balls and flourishing. Unfortunately, attempted white erasure also continued against William and his legacy. After his death, local officials burned his house down. If you were to Google him right now you would find many photos of a man believed to be William, but who, in fact is a different Black man in drag altogether who went by Mr. Brown (featured in the image of this post). As for the cakewalk, elements of the dance became voguing, which became synonymous with Madonna at her blondest, somehow.

Whiteness is a hell of a thing.

The Black Experience is as real and varied and beautiful as any truth.

Happy Pride.