LEST WE FORGET AIDA OVERTON WALKER
(Feb. 14, 1880 - October 11, 1914)

"The Queen of the Cakewalk" or as composer Bert Stamps called her in his ode to her--"a terrestrial 'fairy' on feet."

At an early age she gained an education and considerable musical training in New York City.  She started her career in the late 1880s as a chorus member in "Black Patti's Troubadours,"  where she met her husband, George Walker who, with his partner Bert Williams, were the major black vaudeville and musical comedy powerhouses of the era.

Around the time of her marriage to George in 1899, Williams and Walker began to concentrate on writing and performing full-length musicals rather than stand-alone songs and sketches in the vaudeville tradition.
She first gained attention in 1900, when her performance of "Miss Hannah From Savannah" in their show Sons of Ham became an instant hit. In 1903 she played a command performance at Buckingham Palace for King Edward VII, thus gaining international stardom.
           For the next ten years, she would be known for her work in musical theater as the talented trio (George, Bert and Aida) performed in successful shows such as In Dahomey (1902), Abyssinia (1906) and Bandana Land (1908).  She choreographed all of the productions as well as Bob Cole and J. Rosamond Johnson's popular The Red Moon (1909). The era of the Williams and Walker musicals came to an end with Bandana Land, as George Walker became ill midway through the show's run in 1909 and passed away in 1911.

Aida and George Walker

The last three years of her career have been largely ignored by scholars. In The Last "darky", Louis Chude-Sokei stressed that Aida was not merely an accessory to the creative duo of Williams and Walker, but a star in her own right.

The final full-length musical of her career was the Smart Set Company's
His Honor the Barber (1911). When she joined the company, she was billed as a supporting actress alongside director and star S. H. Dudley; however the press remembered them as co-stars. Her performance was considered the highlight of the show.  Critic Sylvester Russell commented that her tour with the Smart Set Company "demonstrated that she is the dominant feature of the show and the box office draw. Without her last season, there would have been no box office attraction."  In the New York Dramatic Mirror the critic wrote: "...Miss Walker, as is well known, is the best Negro comedienne today...her impersonation of a Negro 'chappie'...is the real hit of the play.  The Chicago Defender: "All the people who ventured out to see...the Smart Set Company were drawn there to see Mrs.Walker, the most fascinating and vivacious female comedy actress the Negro race has ever produced. Her male specialty, "Thats why they call me shine" held her audiences spellbound.
 Both of the reviews mentioned her performances in male attire. Such drag numbers were her specialty--she had taken over her ill husband's role in Bandana Land and was considered to be the only person who could accurately imitate him.

In 1912 it was announced that she would perform her interpretation of the "Salome" dance at Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre. This dance, which originally premiered in Bandana Land (1908) was her response to the "Salomania" craze that swept through the white vaudeville circuit in 1907.  The nationwide fascination with all things Salome began in 1907 when the Metropolitan Opera House shut down Richard Strauss' opera Salome after a single performance.   Many white dancers, quick to capitalize on the American public's appetite for the risque, made a name for themselves through their own sexually charged adaptations of the "dance of the seven veils".

Her adaptation of the Salome dance was very different from the titillating performances of countless white actresses and indeed, from Aida's own perspective, it had to be. She was aware of the potential impact the performing arts could have on race relations, having written in a 1905 article for Colored American, "I venture to think and dare to state that our profession does more toward the alleviation of color prejudice than any other profession among colored people."
        Through her work she strove to combat the prevalent stereotype that African-American women in general, and black actresses in particular, were immoral and oversexed. "I am aware of the fact that many well-meaning people dislike stage life, especially our women," she wrote. "On that point I would say, a woman does not lose her dignity. . .when she enters stage life."

As Salome in 1912 wearing a diamond necklace
that could double as a tiara

Performing Salome as a figure that "epitomized the inherent sensuality and, according to some, perversity of women" was out of the question. She downplayed the erotic aspects of the Salome dance, beginning with the costume. A cartoon in The New York World was accompanied by the caption that "she dances better than some of the Salomes that wear fewer clothes." She chose to emphasize the dramatic elements of the performance, coordinating her movements and expressions in order to convey the thoughts and emotions of the Salome character. The result was a technically innovative dance that "transformed the role of a highly sexualized dancer. . . into a dramatic achievement."

The success of her performance at Hammerstein's Victoria Theater, a space previously restricted to white entertainers, was evidenced when she was again welcomed to the theater the following year.

This time she was not a solo artist, but the leader and choreographer of her vaudeville troupe of dancing girls. She performed the drag number "Bon Bon Buddy," originally popularized by her husband. It became a beloved part of her vaudeville act.
             Her final engagement outside of New York took place at the Pekin Theatre in Chicago. "One of Miss Walker's ambitions has been to produce her own show", reported the Chicago Defender, "and for this special engagement she has surrounded herself with a large number of clever, pretty girls of sweet voices and nimble of feet."   For her entirely new and novel repertoire, readers were advised to secure seats in advance and avoid the rush.  Another article about  her Chicago performances commented, "Here were arrayed the cream of vaudevillians, presenting the latest and best in their line, headed by the divine Aida. . .There is but one thing that is a bit disappointing, she doesn't appear often enough on the bill."  Even in her final appearances on the stage, Aida Walker Overton always left the audience wanting more.    The theater had to turn people away nightly and the show was considered the most popular and the biggest financial success ever produced in Chicago from private sources."
        How galling it must have been to see Vernon and Irene Castle so thoroughly appropriate the popular ragtime dance craze she'd helped to initiate.  She died from kidney failure at such an early age.  Lying in state in the new St. Philip's Episcopal Church, thousands passed her bier.
       An article published two weeks after her death in New York at the age of 34, titled "Race Still Mourns for Aida Overton Walker"  reflected: "She had not passed on life's highway the stone that  marks the highest point of her achievement, but being weary for a moment she laid down by the wayside to rest." Her primary obituary in the Chicago Defender included a similar statement that "she had died before the "zenith of life".  The Philadelphia Tribune maintained that she was "in a class by herself. . . second to none in her line of work."

Resources:  Wikipedia,  http://blackacts.commons.yale.edu/exhibits/show/blackacts/walker