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Katherine Dunham was an American anthropologist, dancer, choreographer, actor, singer, and author, born on June 22, 1909, in Chicago, Illinois. She passed away on May 21, 2006, in New York City. In 1964, she became the artist-in-residence at Southern Illinois University. The following year, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed her as a technical cultural adviser to the government of Senegal in West Africa. In 1967, Dunham founded the Performing Arts Training Center (PATC) in East St. Louis to leverage the arts in combating poverty and urban unrest. Following the 1968 riots after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, she encouraged local gang members to use drumming and dance as an outlet for their frustrations, which led to her arrest and subsequent release by local police. Throughout her life, Dunham lectured at annual Masters' Seminars in St. Louis, attracting dance students globally. She also established the Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities in East St. Louis to preserve Haitian and African instruments and artifacts from her collection. In 1976, she served as a guest artist-in-residence and lecturer for Afro-American studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where a photographic exhibit titled "Kaiso! Katherine Dunham" was displayed at the Women's Center. In 1978, an anthology of writings about her, also called "Kaiso! Katherine Dunham," was published

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