Dancing Through Redlines: The Jesse Cosby Story | Waterloo, Iowa 

This video highlights the life of a remarkable man named Jesse Cosby living in 1950s Waterloo, Iowa. As a Black janitor working at the “white only” Waterloo Recreation Center, Cosby set out to offer recreational activities, like golf, tennis, and square dancing for Black children in Waterloo. He also created two choirs that traveled to small, mostly white-populated towns across Iowa, bringing Black gospel and choral music to Iowans. Cosby also became a renowned square dance caller. Local historian Rachelle Chase narrates the story of Jesse Cosby, sharing his family’s memories, along with the story of segregation in Iowa marked by redlining and limited job opportunities for Black Iowans. View a remarkable collection of Jesse Cosby photographs donated by great nephew Jesse Henderson available here at Fortepan Iowa / Jesse Henderson
fortepan.us/se...
CC-BY-SA 4.0: If embedding or screening this video, please attribute Fortepan Iowa, fortepan.us.
ALL IMAGE ATTRIBUTIONS: Jim Henderson/Fortepan Iowa, CC-BY-SA 4.0.
fortepan.us/se...
Redline Map: From “Mapping Inequality,” dsl.richmond.e....
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License