Before there was your favorite female entertainer, there was “FLORENCE MILLS” WINFREY (1896-1927), the first black international female superstar of the 20th century. But you’ve probably never heard of her because the recording techniques used in the early 1900s couldn’t capture her voice, and she was never filmed, so there are no recorded performances of her.

Born to former slave parents in the Washington D.C. slum of Goat Alley on Jan. 25, 1896, Florence Winfrey won a talent contest at 4-years-old for Buck and Wing dancing. While entertaining at a diplomatic function that same year, she received a gold bracelet from the British ambassador’s wife.Three years later she made her professional debut as a guest star on The Sons of Ham with vaudeville entertainers George Walker and Bert Williams, who was the first black person to have a lead role on the Broadway stage.

The following year, Florence joined a white vaudeville touring company and moved to New York with her mother and older sisters, Olivia and Maude, settling in Harlem, where she and her sisters established a traveling song and dance act known as the Mills Sisters. They performed in most black theaters in New York and even toured across much of the South until Maude married and Olivia retired. Florence then formed the Panama Trio singing group with Ada “Bricktop” Smith and Cora Green, but within a year the trio had disbanded after a shooting scandal closed the Panama Cafe where they had often performed.

Florence then joined The Tennessee Ten, a successful black traveling show, where she met dancing director Ulysses “Slow Kid” Thompson, who was a well-known acrobatic, tap and “rubberlegs” dancer. The couple married in 1921, the same year Florence was offered the lead role in Shuffle Along, which was written by Eubie Blake and became the first hit Broadway musical written by and about African-Americans. The musical is also considered an impetus to the Harlem Renaissance.

Florence became an overnight sensation, garnering one of the first black female fashion spreads in Vogue and Vanity Fair. There were Florence Mills dolls, and anything she did sartorially became the latest fashion trend. She also had her own silk stockings simply known as the Florence Mills shade. In 1924, Florence starred in Dixie to Broadway, which became another hit and offered her rendition of “I’m a Little Blackbird Looking for a Bluebird”, which became her signature tune, earning her the nickname Blackbird. Continue