Rockettes got their first black dancer in 1987 — and she’s written. book

She joined the kickline and broke the color barrier. 

In 1988, 19-year-old Jennifer Jones became the first black Rockette when she danced with the iconic group for the Super Bowl halftime show.

“It was magic,” said Jones, of taking the field as Chubby Checker played the piano. “I just felt like I was supposed to be there.”

But being a pioneer wasn’t easy, as Jones, now 56, details in her new memoir, “Becoming Spectacular: The Rhythm of Resilience from the First African American Rockette” (Amistad, out now). 

“The technique was not to stand out,” the Bellville, New Jersey native told The Post. “And as a black woman, I couldn’t help but stand out.”

When Jones showed up at the Rockettes audition in 1987, she almost left after seeing the line of women wrapped around the music hall. 

“They knew how to wear their hair and their makeup, and they were just put together so well,” she said. “I was very intimidated. But I was just about to step out of the line, and a voice inside me said, ‘Stay.’ … It was a gut instinct.”

She didn’t realize she was the first black performer in the Rockette’s 63-year history until she heard about her appointment on the Channel 4 Evening News a few days after securing the spot. “I was so naive,” she said.

Jones felt unique pressure to nail the steps, all the while doing endless interviews — much to the chagrin of some of the other girls — about her historic hire. 

Not everyone was cheering for her. 

Russell Markert, who founded the Rockettes in 1925, wanted the women in his chorus line to look uniform and had strict height and weight requirements. He once forbade a dancer from tanning because he worried it would make her look like a “colored girl.” 

“I knew he wasn’t happy about it,” Jones said of her joining the group. 

Legendary choreographer Violet Holmes, who led the Rockettes from 1971 to 1992, wasn’t thrilled either.

She once remarked that the dancers needed to be “mirror images” of another, and said “One or two black girls would distract. You would lose the line of precision.”

But the Rockettes were under pressure to diversify. The NAACP called out the organization in 1982, demanding that it hire performers of color. In 1985, the first Asian dancer, Setsuko Maruhashi, joined the line.

At Jones’ first rehearsal, Holmes — who warned Jones she wouldn’t be teaching her any of the moves in advance — berated her in front of a TV news crew when she couldn’t execute a combination. 

When Jones arrived in San Diego for the Super Bowl, the head of PR called her into a meeting. “Nobody cares about you. Nobody cares about your story. … You’re old news. You should consider yourself even lucky to even be here,” she told her.

“Her words rang in my head for years,” Jones said. “I believed her.”

She kept going, despite the struggles. Once, while changing during a performance of the Christmas Spectacular, a white dancer hit her for encroaching on her space. 

Another time, Jones watched in disbelief as a colleague donned blackface backstage, painting her skin darker and darker and her friends laughed. “You’re hilarious,” another girl said. 

At one point, Jones asked if she could wear tights that matched her skin tone. The costumer flew into a rage.

“Whenever there’s change, there’s resistance,” Jones said. “But I ushered in a new era.” 

After her fourth or fifth year on the line, the Rockettes hired a second black dancer, then another, and another. Eventually, they got tights that matched their skin tone.

In 2001, Jones joined the original cast of the revival of “42nd Street,” which went on to win a Tony. She quit the Rockettes the following year.

Ups and downs followed. When “42nd Street” closed in 2005, Jones swept floors at Jazz at Lincoln Center for cash. She lost her home during the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008. In 2018, she was diagnosed with colon cancer. 

Now retired, Jones lives cancer-free with her husband of four years in New Jersey. She has two adult children — Zachary and Isabella — and is “a great dancer at weddings.” 

She makes a point of seeing the Christmas Spectacular nearly every year.

“I’m part of the Rockettes of Color Alumni, so there’s a new Rockette legacy that I’m a part of,” she said. 

It’s taken her decades to feel confident enough to tell her story. 

“Making history rarely feels like it in the moment,” she writes in her book. “We want to believe that any ‘first’ must know the journey they’re embarking on … [but] Firsts are people who simply want to do what they love.”