Josh White (1914–1969) became the first African-American male star of “all media” in the 1940s, gaining popularity on stage, radio, screen, and recordings as an actor, guitarist, and folk and blues singer. White was a leading civil rights activist, sang on the first “race record” played on white radio stations, and was a friend of the Roosevelt family. Vishniac captured White at the height of his career, suspended in mid-song, mouth open and fingers strumming the guitar. The owner of Café Society, Barney Josephson, was the son of Latvian Jewish immigrants. He “wanted a club where blacks and whites worked together behind the footlights and sat together out in front.” At a time when even the Cotton Club in Harlem allowed only a few African-Americans, Café Society welcomed them as patrons and performers. Billie Holiday sang in the nightclub’s opening show in 1938, and first performed “Strange Fruit” there in 1939, with a backdrop of wall murals by some of the Village’s most celebrated artists.