On June 14, 2006, the U.S. House approved H. Con. Res. 451, honoring choreographer and activist Katherine Dunham's life and achievements.
On June 14, 2006, less than a month after Katherine Dunham's death, the United States House of Representatives approved H. Con. Res. 451 by voice vote, a concurrent resolution formally honoring the life, career, and achievements of the choreographer, anthropologist, and civil rights activist.
This congressional resolution represented a significant national recognition of Dunham's contributions across multiple fields, explicitly acknowledging her role in founding what the resolution described as the first Black ballet company in the United States, her groundbreaking anthropological fieldwork in the Caribbean, her decades of choreographic innovation on Broadway, in film, and in opera, and her lifelong activism on behalf of civil rights and Haitian refugees.
The resolution's passage reflected the growing bipartisan recognition, in the years following her death, of Dunham's foundational importance not just to American dance but to the broader cultural and social fabric of the twentieth century United States. It formally enshrined her legacy within the official record of the U.S. government, ensuring her contributions would be remembered as a matter of national historical importance.
This honor came amid a broader wave of posthumous recognition for Dunham, including renewed attention to her archival collections and continued operation of institutions bearing her name, such as the Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities in East St. Louis, Illinois, which continue to preserve her legacy and mission today.