Sotiropoulos's main argument is that African American performers in the age of Jim Crow were able, despite the racism and discrimination of the era, to create a space in which meaningful advances might be made in both the creative and political spheres. That is, that some were able to turn the forces of modernism and commercial popular culture to their advantage. Her focus is on New York City, where new public spaces were emerging in the expanding leisure culture of the early twentieth century. Here African American artists as vaudevillians and later in black musical productions played to two audiences: whites in the orchestra enjoying the antics of minstrel stereotypes, blacks in the gallery tuned in to messages about life in a racist society.

For Sotiropoulos the delicate balancing act in this arena of black performance represents an important mediating force (for younger, urban middle-class African Americans) in keeping alive the struggle for dignity and recognition at this lowest point in race relations. There is no denying the popularity of “coon shows” or the pervasiveness of minstrel stereotypes, nor the caution with which black artists negotiate the power and hostility of the white community. But what the writer does point out is that there is more political and cultural “uplift” going on amongst the entertainers, in the productions and in the professional clubs than has been hitherto acknowledged. The all-black production of Abyssinia on Broadway in 1906 presented a more positive view of Africa. The Emancipation Celebrations in NYC in 1913 brought W. E. B. Du Bois together with Bert Williams, Will Marion Cook and other well-known artists. Will Marion Cook even made it to Carnegie Hall.

One of the strengths of this book is the way in which it adds significant weight to a reappraisal of who was controlling the theatrical space. This is Paul Dunbar's mask – which grins and lies to the white audience. Sotiropolos calls this hokum (playing to the racist stereotypes), and she argues that there is a genuine black culture and consciousness onstage because on a profound level these performers “had the white man's number.”

These were some of the most famous African Americans of their day, with national and sometimes international reputations. It is to the credit of Sotiropoulos that she has with skill and scholarship put together a plausible case for reassessing their political and cultural agency in Jim Crow America.