Sneak Peek: Revisiting Reginald McLaughlin Podcast

Jo Reed: As you said tap dancing was considered outdated and there weren’t gigs. So you began dancing in the subways in Chicago.

Reginald McLaughlin: You had to make your own opportunity if you wanted to tap and that’s what I wanted to do. So I would go down in the subway and tap dance. So ah, man. I went through all kind of obstacles of people trying to deter, but I stood my ground, man, and I didn’t let that happen. Everybody was change you, try to change you. If meet a young lady, you meet her parents, they ask you “oh, so what do you do?” “Oh, I’m a tap dancer”. The parents look at you, “Tap dancer? That ain’t no job. That’s like a hobby or a recreation.” I like” no, not with me.” I was proud of it. So I went through a lot to go all the way with this. I was getting hit all kind of ways of different obstacles coming at me, but I didn’t let that stop me though. And in the subway was rough. It wasn’t like here you got a paid audience and you had all kind of people down there in the subway. I really, really paid the dues down there.