Ernest Hogan (born Ernest Reuben Crowders, 1868? to 1909) was the first African American entertainer to produce and star in a Broadway show ("The Oyster Man" in 1907) and helped create the musical genre of ragtime. A native of Bowling Green, Kentucky, as a teenager Hogan worked in traveling minstrel shows as a dancer, musician, and comedian. In 1895 Hogan published several popular songs in a new musical genre, which he named ragtime. Wikipedia
The definitive Wikipedia entry for Ernest Hogan. Wikipedia is the biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hogan
