Howard Theatre

The Howard Theatre opened in 1910 as the nation’s first major theater built for African Americans, drawing audiences for plays, variety shows, concerts, and movies. In the 1930s, under manager Shep Allen, it became part of the segregation-era Chitlin’ Circuit featuring African American performers, and Allen’s Amateur Night contests launched Billy Eckstine, Pearl Bailey, and Bill Kenny of the Ink Spots. Chuck Brown, later known as the Godfather of Go-Go and inventor of DC’s own sound, first worked outside the Howard Theatre as a young child shining shoes. Although the theater escaped damage in the riots of April 1968, audiences afterward avoided the riot-scarred neighborhood, and the Howard closed in 1970, reopened in 1974, and closed again before rehabilitation began in 2010. For years its stage doors opened to Wiltberger Street near the Wonder Bread Bakery, formerly Dorsch’s White Cross Bakery, where fans lingered amid the smell of fresh bread while watching for performers headed to U Street night spots or an after-show gathering at Cecilia’s. Nearby bakeries also included Corby, later Continental, and Bond Bread near Howard University, and baseball fans leaving Griffith Stadium remembered stopping for fresh doughnuts on the way home. Near the theater at 614 S Street, Jean Clore’s Guest House and after-hours club hosted well-known dignitaries from every walk of life in what the Black press of the 1930s called a swanky homey hotel, and in 1982 the New Community Church moved into the building.

Washington, District of Columbia · United States