Read "There is Confusion" by Jessie Redmon Fauset online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The District Line Theater was jammed every night now. People came from all over New York and all its suburbs to see the new dancer -- Joanna Marshall. Her success and fame were instant. The newspapers featured her, the "colyumists" wrote her up, her face appeared with other members of the cast, but never alone, on the billboards outside the little ramshackle theater. Special writers came to see her, took snapshots of herself and of Sylvia which they never published, and speculated on the amount of white blood which she had in her veins.
Mr. Hale had taken her on in May. The piece ran all summer with Joanna as the great attraction, although not the acknowledged star. Miss Ashby, the girl who danced as an Indian and as an American, was that. From the first she had resented the colored girl's success and had held jealously to all her rights and privileges. But the public, surprisingly loyal to this new and original plaything, never varied in the expression of its enjoyment of Joanna. Now that her changed contract was again about to expire, Miss Ashby announced her inability to remain with the play.