Browse Items (24 total)

The Lenape Bar was a LaVilla hotspot in Jacksonville between the 1920s and 1940s. It hosted performances by Ray Charles and other important artists who toured Florida between the 1920s and 1950s. Jazz artists who performed at the Ritz Theatre or…

Miami’s business and political elite developed “slum clearance” plans during the 1930s designed to remove the city’s African American population beyond the city limits. While New Deal housing projects created new segregated areas in Dade County in…

The African American community in Gainesville was restricted to a small area on the east side of town. The Cotton Club, named after the famous nightclub in Harlem, was the entertainment center of Gainesville’s African American community. Many stops…

Though much of the Circuit remained “underground” throughout the 1960s and 1970s, national and international artists often toured the larger stops in Florida. This promotional billboard advertised an Aretha Franklin performance in Miami’s Overtown…

This cartoon appeared in the November 2, 1971 issue of the Florida Sentinel Bulletin, an African American newspaper in Tampa. The artist’s depiction of an African American family watching a white family on television highlights the political…

Reverend C.K. Steele speaks at a rally outside of the Red Bird Café in Tallahassee’s Frenchtown neighborhood in 1971. Reverend Steele was an important leader in the Tallahassee civil rights movement. As head of the Inter-Civic Council, an…

Performance and politics meet in two ways in this 1971 photo, as “Daddy Twofoot” performs for a political rally crowd outside of the Red Bird Café in Tallahassee’s Frenchtown neighborhood. By the 1970s, many artists on the Circuit were overtly…

On July 30, 1967, a confrontation between police and two African American men at a popular night spot in Riviera Beach escalated to a full-scale riot. The riot lasted through the night, and a local lumber company was set ablaze. Local leaders called…

The Circuit and politics were linked in African American communities and existed side-by-side on newspaper pages. Comedians performed regularly on the Circuit. This ad promotes comedian Slappy White, who later appeared on Sanford and Son and other…

The Red Bird Café was situated at the center of the historic Frenchtown neighborhood in Tallahassee throughout the 1960s and 1970s. A popular dance club and bar, the Red Bird Café hosted both local acts and groups touring the Circuit. Activists held…