Freedom's Gate

AN ILLUMINATING PORTRAIT OF FIVE BLACK WOMAN ARTISTS AND THE NEW YORK NIGHTCLUB THAT HELPED INSPIRE THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT.

Before they were household names, Maya Angelou, Lorraine Hansberry, Abbey Lincoln, Miriam Makeba, and Nina Simone needed a place to practice and perform. That place was the Village Gate, a New York City nightclub that Art D’Lugoff opened at the dawn of an unprecedented decade in civil rights. In the heart of Greenwich Village, the women of the Gate created something that few could have imagined: a downtown hotspot for Black art, culture, music, and politics.

Freedom’s Gate depicts the groundbreaking artistry and deepening political convictions of the women of the Gate as they developed in the spotlight of art and revolution. From Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun to Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” and Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach’s We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, Soyica Diggs Colbert brings to life the culture and performances that were the soundtrack to Black freedom struggles in the 1950s and 1960s. Colbert also shows how the women of the Gate raised money and awareness for groups at the vanguard of civil rights, brought the call for African independence home to New York City, and interwove Western and black diasporic influences into American popular performance, with supporting roles from stars and activists such as Harry Belafonte, Stokely Carmichael, and Sidney Poitier.

As the women relied on one another as entertainers, activists, intellectuals, and friends, the Gate became an outpost for freedom struggles outside of Harlem and the American South, a haven that did not abide by the norms of segregation or the expectations of “women’s work,” and a world-renowned venue defined by its radical musicians, artists, and budding stars. Freedom’s Gate is a vibrant history of a little-known chapter of the civil rights movement that gave voice and soul to the call for liberation.

“In this meticulously researched, beautifully written book, Soyica Diggs Colbert introduces us to the early careers of Maya Angelou, Lorraine Hansberry, Abbey Lincoln, Miriam Makeba, and Nina Simone as they shaped their aesthetic and political sensibilities into art forms that could in turn give voice to the most urgent concerns of their times. Freedom’s Gate is a magnificent project, written by a truly talented scholar.”—Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of Read Until You Understand