 Both " I 'm Just Wild About Harry " and the show Shuffle Along broke racial taboos . During the early 20th century African @-@ Americans were excluded from most mainstream theater in the United States : white Vaudeville refused to book more than one African @-@ American act on a bill and for over a decade no Broadway show used African @-@ American performers at all . Blake and Sissle met F. E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles for the first time at a fundraising benefit for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1920 . Vaudeville 's exclusionary practices limited bills to one African @-@ American act per night , so as a result the two leading African @-@ American acting teams knew of each other only by reputation . The four performers agreed that the only feasible way for African @-@ Americans to return to Broadway with dignity would be musical comedy . Miller proposed they collaborate . 
