Several years ago, my sister, Gladys, and I attended our home church, Maxatawny Union, for their annual June Strawberry and Ice Cream Festival. One of the events that day was the cake walk, with both adults and youngsters joining in on the fun. It brought back the memories of when I participated in the cake walks at this festival as a youngster.
Cake walks are truly simple games to put together. You need music, while the children (or adults) walk around a large circle with round chalk-marked circles (with different numbers inside) on the black tar. The circles have to be a few feet apart, and big enough to step inside. When the music stops, the child standing closest (or inside the circle) to the secret numbered circle (chosen beforehand) wins the cake, (or cakes if more than one), donated for prizes.
Like anything else, my curiosity got the best of me. I wanted to know more about this simple cake walk of my childhood.
To my surprise, not only do churches have cake walks, but communities, groups and neighborhoods have them as well. And all have added twists of their own, such as a variety of baked goods, sweets and trinkets. It can even be a fund raiser for an organization or a community inviting the general public. Some groups sell tickets to those who wish to participate in a cake walk. Young and old join in and a good time is had by all.
This cake walk we know and love has its origin in the southern plantation dance, developed by the African American slaves, in the late 19th century.
Generally, this dancing was done on Sundays, when there wasn’t as much work to be done. Young and old participated, dressed up in hand-me-down dress, mimicking what they had often seen in the ballroom dances of their owners. They would walk around the plantation grounds, high-kicking, strutting, bowing, with a backward head tilt, to music supplied by a banjo, drum or horn.
The owners of the plantation invited their neighbors to watch these dances, and held contests too see who was the best dancer. The owner’s originally gave a prize called a hoe cake, wrapped in cabbage leaf. Eventually, the “prize walk” became an elaborately decorated cake, where the expressions “cake walk,” “take the cake” and “piece of cake” (meaning the steps were done with ease and grace) came from.
This cake walk dance became popular. In 1876, at the Centennial Expo in Philadelphia, one of the exhibits featured black performers singing folk songs and doing the cake walk as a dance.
After the Expo, the cake walk dance became popular in the Minstrel Shows. They were mainly performed by men, who painted their faces black. Eventually, it was performed by both black and white performers. An African American team, George Walker and Bert Williams, were well known performers of the cake walk dance.
People loved the cake walk dance. By 1892, a Grand Cake Walk was held in Madison Square Garden, and in 1897, a National Championship was held. Coney Island held Cake Walk dance contests.
This high-stepping strut was adopted by marching bands and became popular in Europe, thanks to John Phillip Sousa, who took his marches and Cake Walks there.
By the 1920s, the cake walk dance had died to other dances, like the Charleston. Yet, it didn’t truly die in the eyes of a child, who is the winner of a cake walk in the Sunday School Cake Walks of our childhood.
Carole Christman Koch grew up in Berks County and has been published in numerous publications. She has a passion for writing and has many stories from growing up on a farm to everyday stories.
