Raven Wilkinson, 83, Is Dead; Black Ballerina Braved Segregated South | The New York Times

African American Art, Ballet ... Posted by: KOLUMN Magazine

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Raven Wilkinson, 83, Is Dead; Black Ballerina Braved Segregated South | The New York Times

Marina Harss, The New York Times



[dropcap]Raven[/dropcap] Wilkinson, one of the first African-American dancers to perform with a major ballet company, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, died on Monday at her home in Manhattan. She was 83. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″]

Her brother, Frost Bernie Wilkinson Jr., confirmed her death but did not specify a cause.

Raven Wilkinson, Black Ballerina, African American Ballet, Black Ballet, African American Dance, KOLUMN Magazine, KOLUMN, KINDR'D Magazine, KINDR'D, Willoughby Avenue

The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo was a high-profile company that toured the United States in the 1940s and ′50s, and the appearance of an African-American onstage as a Sylph or a Swan in the South could incur threats from the Ku Klux Klan. Though Ms. Wilkinson was lighter-skinned and encouraged to wear pale makeup onstage, she always refused to hide her race.

In recent years, she was a mentor and friend to Misty Copeland, who in 2015 became the first African-American ballerina to be named a principal dancer at American Ballet Theater in New York, one of the nation’s most important companies.

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