: The dance became a national sensation after being featured in the 1923 Broadway musical Runnin' Wild , set to the hit song "The Charleston" by James P. Johnson .

: It was the preferred dance of flappers , who used its energetic, vertical movements to celebrate their new freedoms—shorter skirts, bobbed hair, and the abandonment of restrictive corsets. Tracing the Roots of the “Charleston” Dance

: While it found global fame in New York, the dance's roots are in African American folk traditions , specifically the "ring shout" ceremonies of the Gullah community in South Carolina. It was further shaped by children dancing to the Jenkins Orphanage Marching Band.