LeRoy Myers (November 10, 1919 – April 26, 2004) was an

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

tap dancer Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely perfo ...

and manager of the

Copasetics The Original Copasetics were an ensemble of star tap dancers formed in 1949 on the death of Bill Bojangles Robinson that helped to revive the art of tap. The first group included composer/arranger Billy Strayhorn and the choreographer Cholly Atkins ...

. He was born in North Philadelphia,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

and learned to tap dance on the street corners of Philadelphia. When

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson Bill Robinson, nicknamed Bojangles (born Luther Robinson; May 25, 1878 – November 25, 1949), was an American tap dancer, actor, and singer, the best known and the most highly paid African-American entertainer in the United States during the f ...

died in 1949, LeRoy Myers and some close friends were inspired to form the

, named after Bill Robinsons' favorite expression, "Everything is Copasetic." The Copasetics was a fraternity of black entertainers that were influential in the revival of tap dancing in the late 1970s through the 1980s. LeRoy Myers was elected as the club's first president. The original membership included

Billy Strayhorn William Thomas Strayhorn (November 29, 1915 – May 31, 1967) was an American jazz composer, pianist, lyricist, and arranger, who collaborated with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington for nearly three decades. His compositions include "Take ...

, James "Chuckles" Walker, Charles "Cookie" Cook, Luther "Slim" Preston, Henry "Phace" Roberts, Johnny Rocket, Pete Nugent,

Honi Coles Charles “Honi” Coles (April 2, 1911 – November 12, 1992) was an American actor and tap dancer, who was inducted posthumously into the American Tap Dance Hall of Fame in 2003. He had a distinctive personal style that required technical prec ...

, Cholly Atkins, Peg Leg Bates, Ernest Brown, Milton Larkin, Francis Goldberg, Frank Goldberg, Emory Evans, Elmer Waters, Roy Branker, Paul Black, Eddie West, and Chink Collins. LeRoy Myers moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in the 1930s and was the producer of the weekly tap jam sessions at the Showmans Jazz Club in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...

. He was the recipient of the 2004 Honi Coles Reward and was going to be honored during Tap Extravaganza 2004 on May 30. He died a month before the Tap Extravaganza from cancer at the age of 84. To commemorate his accomplishments, on March 11, 2006 the LeRoy Myers Corner street sign, on the northeast corner of 122nd Street and Manhattan Avenue in New York City, was unveiled by LeRoy's only surviving brother, Walter Myers. The ceremony was attended by about 20 relatives that had traveled from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as well as Harold "Stumpy" Cromer of the tap team

Stump and Stumpy Stump and Stumpy were a tap dance/comedy/acting duo popular from the mid-1930s to the 1950s, consisting of James "Stump" Cross, and either Eddie Hartman or Harold J. Cromer as "Stumpy". Their act was mostly jazz tap, and comedy expressed through s ...

, dancer Norma Miller, and many others. LeRoy Myers was an honorary board member of th
Tap Legacy Foundation
(TLF). On May 25, 2006, a commemorative plaque honoring the memory of LeRoy Myers was presented at Showmans by TLF.

References

1919 births 2004 deaths American tap dancers Deaths from cancer in New York (state) Artists from Philadelphia 20th-century American dancers 20th-century African-American people {{Dance-bio-stub