On this first day of Black History Month, we’re remembering a master of his craft who performed with legends.
He brought a form of entertainment to crowds who may not have seen anything like it before. His name was Fetaque Sanders, a prominent magician of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.
Magician Scott Humston was getting ready to perform a show at a house in Mount Dora, Florida when NewsChannel 5 arrived to talk with him. Scott said every one of his Mind, Myth, and Magic shows carries the influence of his friend, Fetaque.
“He was definitely the leading African American magician in the country at that point, bar none,” Scott said.
Fellow magician and magazine editor Samuel Patrick Smith has many of the props and ads used by close friend Fetaque.
“All of these things he laid out himself and designed,” Samuel said, flipping through a scrapbook of old ads.
Someone else very close to Fetaque is Carolyn Syphax-Young.
“Fetaque Sanders is my father,” she smiled.
Let’s go back. By 1933, Fetaque, a young man from Nashville, was traveling and living life on the road.