Donald McKayle, one of the first choreographers to weave the African-American experience into the fabric of modern dance and the first black man to direct and choreograph a Broadway musical (“Raisin”), died on Friday at a hospital near his home in Irvine, Calif. He was 87.

His wife, Lea Vivante McKayle, confirmed the death. He was a professor of dance at the University of California, Irvine, for almost 30 years.

Mr. McKayle had been working on Broadway for more than two decades when he achieved his triumph with “Raisin,” a musical based on “A Raisin in the Sun,” Lorraine Hansberry’s classic drama about a black family struggling with loss, change and identity in midcentury Chicago.

Clive Barnes, in his New York Times review of the production, suggested that the musical was even more evocative than the play, and compared Mr. McKayle to the star choreographer Jerome Robbins.