Browse Items (24 total)

The blues allowed performers and audiences to criticize racial oppression, working conditions, and other aspects of life in the South. This lyric fragment recorded by Zora Neale Hurston displays a common form of social criticism in blues lyrics.…

The Two Spot nightclub in Jacksonville’s 45th & Moncrief neighborhood was home to a large dance hall, tables for small and large groups on two levels, and a luxurious soda fountain. Visitors to the club could also rent a cabin on the grounds or watch…

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…

Music on the Southern Circuit returned to the grittier roots of the blues with eclectic new styles like boogie-woogie and rhythm & blues in the 1950s. African American popular musicians in the 1950s expressed a new, aggressive stance in keeping with…

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…

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 widespread popularity of big band jazz allowed Americans in some cities in the 1920s and 1930s to cross racial boundaries and enjoy the music together. Southern cities were not as permissive as northern cities, but the large military presence in…

The African American neighborhood centered on West 45th St. and Moncrief Road in Jacksonville was an enclave of segregation on the outskirts of the city established in the late nineteenth century. The Two Spot, pictured here in the 1940s, hosted…

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…

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…