Billy McClain Keokuk Iowa Actor

Billy McClain

Billy McClain was born in Keokuk, Iowa, in 1866—black, broke, and stubborn. He learned fast that the world wasn’t built for him, so he built his own. By his teens, he was blowing a cornet in Indianapolis and running with minstrel shows, where the jokes were racist and the pay barely real. He played along, twisted the punchlines, and made the crowd laugh on his terms. One critic said he had “a grin that could tame a mob and a wit that could cut glass.”

 He joined the Sells Brothers Circus in the 1880s—the first Black acrobat they’d ever hired. He flew through the air while white audiences stared, waiting for him to fall. He never did. He smiled down at them and took the applause. A newspaper out of Chicago called him “the colored marvel of the season.”

 

Billy produced, wrote, danced, and hustled until he ran his own shows. In 1895 he launched Black America in Brooklyn—five hundred Black performers, choirs, brass bands, soldiers, dancers. The press called it thunder. One reporter said, “The sound rolled like a storm across Ambrose Park—pure jubilation, raw and proud.”

Then came The Smart Set. Slick, loud, and fearless, it was the first all-Black touring company to hit big stages. “The smartest set of colored people ever put together,” one paper said. McClain wasn’t just the star; he was the boss. Another reviewer called him “the most electric comedian on the American stage.” He cracked jokes about politics and race that left audiences roaring and squirming at the same time. “McClain has the timing of a pickpocket and the courage of a preacher,” said one critic.

 

He took the act to Europe, South America, and Australia. In Brisbane, they said he “had the house screaming.” He called himself “the first Negro to sing, dance, and talk in French.” He ran a boxing school in Brussels, managed fighters, and kept performing wherever anyone would watch.

 

By the 1930s, he was in Los Angeles, training cops and playing servants in movies. They misspelled his name in his last film. Then he died in 1950, quiet and broke.