Summary
One of the greatest privileges of my career in folklore was the opportunity to explore the legacy of Clayton “Peg Leg” Bates, a Black one-legged tap dancer, who owned an interracial Catskills resort for 38 years. In the fall of 2016, shortly after I became the Folk Arts Program Manager with Arts Mid-Hudson, Geoff Miller, the Ulster County historian, introduced me to Bates’ legacy. Miller had long wanted to do in-depth research on Bates and hoped that I could raise some funds and join him. We were awarded a grant from New York Humanities and began the project in 2021.
