Early Life & The Beginning of Arthur's Life with Art

 Arthur Micthell, born March 27th 1934 in the neighborhood of Harlem, New York. The oldest son of five to parents Arthur Adams Mitchell Sr. and Willie Mae Hearns Micthell.  Mitchell was forced to assume financial responsibility for his family at 12 years old due to his father’s incarceration. Due to these unfortunate circumstances, Mitchell had to work a number of jobs including ‘shoe-shining, mopping floors, and newspaper delivery, and working in a meat shop’ (Kiddle). In his childhood, he was still given opportunity for community action. At age ten, his mother enrolled him in tap and glee club at the Police Athletic League, as well as choir in the Convent Avenue Baptist Church (Holmes). But, it’s mentioned that as a child, Mitchell was not unlike other young people at the time that were part of gangs, but through my research, it is only ever a brief mention to the sea of success and good fortune he was able to bring to himself and his community through his dedication to the arts. 

As a Middle Schooler, Mitchell was encouraged by a guidance counselor to pursue dance and pushed for he to audition for the New York City High School of Performing Arts. He was accepted in 1949 and was able to attend with a focus on ‘jazz and modern dance, with a minimal emphasis on ballet’ (Holmes). Mitchell said in an interview with the National Endowment for the Arts, that “when I auditioned, I prepared a tap dance routine to Fred Astaire’s ‘Steppin’ Out with My Baby’, but when I got to the audition, I saw all these trained dancers in modern dance and ballet. I thought, “I’ll never get in.” But they needed male dancers, as usual, and I got in” (Hutter) (But looking into Columbia University’s Library, it’s noted that his audition was ‘staged by Tom Nip, a black vaudevillian, Broadway dancer, and choreographer’, adding to the rich history of black culture to a young Arthur Mitchell’s homage) (Garafola). Mitchell eventually earned a scholarship in his senior year of high school to the School of American Ballet from Lincoln Kirstein, who was the cofounder of New York City Ballet. Mitchell was also offered a modern dance scholarship from Bennington College to attend their school in Vermont but because was there a consistent idea during this time that ‘blacks couldn’t perform ballet because their bodies were deemed ‘unfit for graceful movements,’ Mitchell chose to attend School of American Ballet’ (Holmes).