Swing music was a novel, popular offshoot of jazz - which Black Americans invented - and the Lindy Hop was its most iconic accompanying dance.
Like jazz, swing music is special, mostly because of the way it balances orchestration and improvisation. There’s a core arrangement, and then each individual musician goes off to make their part unique.
The Lindy was a perfect example of this, especially since it’s a partnered dance, giving both dancers ample space to feed off of each other.
There’s also evidence that it started as a spoof of white people’s boring, choreographed dances!
Black Americans have always excelled at improvisation - the Cakewalk, Charleston, and even more modern Black dance forms like breakdancing and vogue are based around it.
That goes back to our history - freedom and boundlessness have always been a core aspect of our culture. Others - particularly whites - have always envied this, which is why they keep erasing and even stealing things that we create!
Today, jazz and swing are often associated with white culture - even though WE were the ones who invented them! Many websites about the history of swing and even the Lindy Hop make no mention of our people at all.
We have to remember and spread our history to prevent our contributions from being erased!