Reel

The term “Harlem Renaissance” refers to a period of innovation and growth in the creative output from African Americans that flourished during the decades of the 1920s and 1930s in the United States. The creative energy was not limited to Harlem, a district located in the northern part of Manhattan, one of the boroughs of New York City. However, beginning in the 1920s, Harlem was increasingly home to Black intellectuals and a thriving nightlife that encouraged and supported Black actors, singers, dancers, and other performers.

Lenox Avenue and 139th Street, which are duplicated as movie sets in Reel, were locations in Central Harlem that housed notable venues. The Cotton Club was a popular cabaret where Black artists performed for white audiences. Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Ethel Waters, and Lena Horne all performed there. Of the many popular night clubs, the Radium Club, also located on Lenox Avenue, was home to musicians innovating in the jazz and blues genres. The Lafayette Theater hosted revues and productions by the Lafayette Players, a Black troupe, and audiences were desegregated in a time when segregation was still legally enforced in many areas in the US.

The Savoy Ballroom was another of the earliest racially integrated public spaces in the US.