Philadelphia Weekly

Randy Shine doesn't have the typical magician's story. It doesn't begin with a magic kit, a deck of trick cards and a childhood dream.

It doesn't even begin in childhood.

Shine didn't become interested in magic till he was a grad student working toward a master's in health education at Penn State. During a trip in 1994 he watched a friend's younger brother perform a set of complex coin and card tricks.

"I'd never seen anything like that," Shine says. "I started asking questions. But he refused to tell me how the tricks were done. I got mad. So I went to the library to figure out what he was doing."

Over the next few years Shine studied and practiced magic. After graduating from Penn State in 1996, he returned to his native Philadelphia and became an HIV prevention educator. At that point his dual vocations blended in a surprising way. When public health research took him to South Africa for a year, he discovered a local group of magicians and even taught a class at the College of Magic in Capetown.

Shine returned deeply moved by his experiences and ready to pursue magic professionally. He started networking with magicians throughout the city, and his budding performance schedule kept him traveling between Philadelphia, New York and the Poconos. To keep his skills sharp, he attended as many magic conventions as he could. Yet it was around then that Shine began to notice what turned out to be an unsettling trend: the absence of African-Americans in the magic scene.

"I would go to these conventions, with anywhere between 500 to 2,000 people there, and there'd only be three or four black people," Shine says. "And the question for me was, why is that? We've seen successful black contribution in so many other areas of arts and entertainment."

This led Shine to unearth more information about black involvement in magic. "I don't believe there's one definitive answer," he says, "but looking back into history tells some of the story."

He started with the history of the major magic organizations. "Like many other organizations, for a long time blacks weren't allowed to join," he says. "But the thing about magic is a lot of people learn by joining these types of organizations, or smaller magic clubs. So right there it limited the ability for blacks to learn magic."

When he did find something about a black magician, generally the only evidence was an old playbill or newspaper advertisement. Only a few detailed stories have survived.

Some of these better known stories involve men like Richard Potter, America's "First Negro Magician," who was probably also the first American-born magician of any race. Historians have yet to find record of any earlier white American-born magicians.

There was also Henry Brown, a slave who escaped to Philadelphia in 1848 by shipping himself in a wooden box. He later gained fame as an antislavery activist and professional magician who went by the name Henry "Box" Brown. Within a few months of these discoveries, Shine conceived a magic show to be performed entirely by black magicians. He hoped to use this show as a vehicle for increasing public awareness about this little-known chapter in black American history.

In 2001 Shine experienced his first success on both counts. He rented out the Shubin Theatre at Fourth and Bainbridge and presented his show A Little Black Magic to a sold-out crowd. "It was a great success. People were really excited about it," he says. "The goal was to do it bigger next year."

Which is exactly what's happened each year since. In 2002 and 2003 he renamed the show The Heart and Soul of Magic and rented out his largest venue yet, the Freedom Theatre on North Broad Street.

Shine spent most of 2003 planning to make the show even bigger. "I figured if I wanted it to be big I had to take it out of Philadelphia," he says. So on Feb. 21 The Heart and Soul of Magic will travel to George Mason University's Harris Theatre in Fairfax, Va., for a special Black History Month performance.

Shine hopes his shows will continue to attract all races and ages, but he does have a special message in mind for black youths: "I just want them to know that there are other things besides wanting to be a rapper, an actor or an athlete. There are other fields out there, ones we haven't even touched yet. They could be the next trailblazers."

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Rachel Estrada (editmail@philadelphiaweekly.com) is a freelance writer from Philadelphia.