Young ladies too tired to stand at a Black debutante ball: Miranda Barnes’s best photograph
THE GUARDIAN - My new book Social Season opens with a poem set in the mid-1800s, a time that marked the beginning of a period of increased financial prosperity for some African Americans. Cotillion dances have European origins, but in the poem, Black New Yorkers perform classic dances such as waltzes and quadrilles and are dressed in fine outfits. These Black debutante balls go back a long way, and are