Opened in 1923, the Cotton Club quickly rose to fame. Visitors from around the world took the A train to Harlem to get to the club, located on 142^nd Street and Lenox Avenue. The owner, a gangster by the name of Owney Madden, used the club to sell beer during the Prohibition Era. Clientele, made up mostly of elite white New Yorkers, visited the Cotton Club to drink alcohol and enjoy music and dancing. However, the entertainers, as well as most of the staff were African American. Jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway played music while the Cotton Club Girls danced.

The Cotton Club Girls, also known as the Copper-Colored Gals were a group of light-skinned dancers and singers. There were strict rules and restrictions for these women at the club. They had to be at least five feet and six inches tall, under twenty-one years of age, and light-skinned enough to pass the “brown paper bag” test -their skin had to be lighter than a brown paper bag. This criteria was not unique to the Cotton Club. For decades it had been used to determine acceptance into fraternities, universities, and other institutions –even including churches, both outside and within the black community.