The 'Fierce Freedom of Their Souls': Activism of African Dance in the Oakland Bay Area

Abstract

The Oakland-San Francisco Bay Area is a center of African dance in the United States, which has evolved out of the black political and cultural activism of the 1960s. African nationals from Ghana, Congo, and Senegal established a strong community of dancers and drummers that built upon the Dunham dance legacy through Ruth Beckford, the late Katherine Dunham company member