Pearl Primus was born in 1919, she was an aspiring doctor, deterred by racial discrimination she turned to dance as a way to express her experiences and frustrations. Her performances largely focused on her black heritage, she drew inspiration for her choreography from the struggles of American life as a black woman and the injustices imposed on black communities, pulling styles from West Indian dance forms as well as her experience from her travels to Africa. She was quickly coined "a pioneer of African dance in the US" and used her performances as a means of political protest. She passed away in 1994, leaving behind a legacy of using dance to inspire social change.

Racial discrimination was still very prominent in the after years following World War 2, though that's when Pearl Primus rose to fame in the dance industry due to her prominent themes about racism. Most of her dances consisted of leaps and other forceful dramatic movements which appeared as unordinary but swift in the world of dance.

Primus went on to have many successful dances into the mid-1900s. In her most notable dance Strange Fruit, Primus portrayed the lynching of a black woman by a white community though with emphasis on one woman in particular. Instead of displaying the black woman, Primus instead embodies a white woman who witnessed and participated in. Along with the backing track being the spoken word poem (Strange Fruit), she displays the ultimate guilt and horror the white woman faced. This dance faced severe backlash due to Primus playing the white woman rather than the black woman.

Along with her critical dance Strange Fruit, Primus went on to dance to another spoken word poem, The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes. The poem itself develops a sense of the African diaspora though Primus creates a "stronger connection, pride, and strength" to her heritage which becomes apparent to the audience. Little was known about African-American ancestral  heritage and although society didn't want to learn more about it, Primus confronted them with it. 

Primus went on to also have other dances with simply production and no words, like Hard Times Blues. A rendition of Josh White's sharecropper song, Primus coneveyed the complex life of sharecroppers even after slavery. In a sense it was still slavery which most white people didn't understand. She went on to portray the isolation and containment they were in which was practically invisible to white people. It was quite controversial because white people were in denial though Primus showcases it for them.

Primus joined the company New Dance Group and quickly rose to prominence. She performed on Broadway not long after joining the company and soon after debuted her first choreography. This led to her opening the Pearl Primus Dance Language Institute in 1944 and she was soon dubbed "America's foremost interpretive dancer" for her distinct style and powerful message. She also received awards such as the National Medal of Arts, a Star of Africa decoration from the Liberian government, and an honorary doctorate from Spelman College.