Bill "Bojangles" Robinson
Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, who claimed he could run backward faster than most men could go forward, was the most famous of all African American tap dancers in the twentieth century. Dancing upright and swinging, his light and exacting footwork brought tap "up on its toes" from an earlier flat-footed shuffling style, and developed the art of tap dancing to a delicate perfection.
Born Luther Robinson in Richmond, Virginia, his parents, Maria and Maxwell Robinson, died in 1885. Young Bill was reared by his grandmother, Bedilia Robinson, who had been a slave. In Richmond, he got the nickname "Bojangles" from "jangler," meaning contentious, and invented the phrase "Everything's Copasetic," meaning tip-top. He got his first professional job in 1892, performing as a member of the pickaninny chorus for Mayme Remington with The South Before the War. When Robinson arrived in New York in 1900, he challenged the In Old Kentucky star tap dancer Harry Swinton to a......

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Title: Bill Bojangles Robinson
Approximate Word Count: 4242
Approximate Pages: 17 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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