As is so often the case these days, for me anyway, it started with social media.

When checking YouTube the morning of Nov. 10, a video short appeared captioned something along the lines of celebrating Judith Jamison and my breathing stopped.

Internet lingo often uses “celebrating” when someone dies.

I sat down.

Jamison — dancer, choreographer, idol, icon, fellow Pennsylvanian — was gone?

Hoping to be wrong, websites for traditional, legacy, heritage or whatever your favorite term for old-school media outlets were next checked.

Judith Jamison, 81, born in Philadelphia, “died after a brief illness,” intoned an obituary from “The Associated Press.”

When reading a description of her in a mainstream magazine many years ago, it was the first time I encountered the word “muse” used in relation to a Black woman.

Alvin Ailey — choreographer, dance company founder, philosopher of the arts — created an epic solo, his 16-minute signature work “Cry” for Jamison. The piece was a defining work for his dance company. It is often said it was Ailey’s birthday present to his mother who inspired him. In its wake, so many took inspiration from Jamison.

In 1999 when Jamison received her Kennedy Center Honor in an auditorium filled with politicians, entertainers, dignitaries, celebrities, etc., the crowd stood in ovation after an excerpt from “Cry” was performed on stage by dancers from Alvin Ailey’s dance company.

And the first person to stand? Jamison herself, elated by the performance, enthusiastically applauding from the balcony for the dancers she now led as the artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, a position she held for more than 20 years.

When Black Entertainment Television, aka BET, saluted Black women in the arts with the special “Black Girls Rock!” and awarded her its Living Legend Award, Jamison spoke after dance force-of-nature Misty Copeland presented Jamison the award statuette. Jamison referenced Ailey in her speech.

“I’m here because he made a path for me, but all of you made a path for me,” Jamison told the audience.

“Now, you’re calling me a legend? Is that what it says? Legend? Well, the legend had to do her laundry this morning,” she joked.

When the world locked down in 2020, one of the surprising acts, to me at least, was wireless carriers allowing unlimited access to data for COVID-19 updates. I soon hit the subscribe button for The Alvin Ailey School YouTube channel, enthralled by the opportunity to see again dances I’d last watched on public television back in the 20th century.

And there she was, talking about the creative process, about dancing “Cry,” a solo in three sections, for the first time in its entirety the night it debuted and about how quiet New York City was without traffic.

Wow. I was stunned. It felt like she was in the living room.

In his description of her in his introduction at the Kennedy Center Honors television special in 1999, actor Morgan Freeman described her as, at close to 6-feet tall, “towering over the world of dance.”

After watching her dance, give a TED talk or move across a stage to receive an award, I always felt a little bit taller, my back a bit straighter and my posture improved.

In her speech to “Black Girls Rock!,” Jamison, said, “Know always that you don’t get (to where you’re going) by yourself, that you are constantly lifted by trailblazers and mentors.”

Thank you, Judith Jamison — author, dancer, choreographer, artistic director, motivational speaker, idol, icon, fellow Pennsylvanian — for being a trailblazer for many of us.

April Peterson

editorial assistant

East Penn Press

Salisbury Press