The April 27, 2006 Harlem Speaks guest, cultural historian and producer Delilah Jackson, delightfully shared memories of her youth while attending P.S. 157 in Harlem and growing up on 126th Street. She recalled seeing Ray Robinson “tap dancing in the street with Scatman Crothers,” and witnessing her first show at the Apollo at the age of six. By the age of ten she was working with Butterfly McQueen at Henry Street Settlement. “She was in Gone with the Wind, and told me that Clark Gable said, ‘If anyone bothers you, come tell me.’”

She spoke with a historian’s precision about Count Basie sitting on the side of the Braddock Hotel in between performances at the Apollo Theater; Charlie Parker hanging out at Andy Kirk’s apartment at 555 Edgecombe Avenue as well as Andy Kirk’s son, a tremendous tenor saxophone talent who died too early; the role of Mafia gangsters in jazz club ownership; working with Marlon Brando at Mary Bruce’s Dance Studio; Teddy Hill and his hilarious tales about a young Dizzy Gillespie; the greatest Vaudeville performer or her day, Florence Mills; and meeting Loren Schoenberg when he was a young lover of jazz at the Overseas Press Club. They didn’t want to let him in. Delilah persuaded them to do so.

She was joined by many close friends (i.e., Harold Cromer and Marcia Durham, daughter of Eddie Durham) and admirers, a number of who were previous Harlem Speaks honorees: Fred Staton, Jacqui “Tajah” Murdock, Cobi Narita, Larry Ridley, Sarah McLawler, and Jean Bach, who years ago gave Ms. Jackson $400 to begin buying her collection of dance films and memorabilia.