Howard Theatre
Lift Every Voice Georgia Avenue
The legendary Howard opened in 1910 as the nation’s first major theater built for African Americans. Audiences came for plays, variety shows, concerts, and movies. In the 1930s, under manager Shep Allen, the Howard became part of the segregation-era “Chitlin’ Circuit” that featured African American performers. Allen’s Amateur Night contests launched Billy Eckstine, Pearl Bailey, and Bill Kenny of the Ink Spots. Godfather of Go-Go Chuck Brown, the inventor of “DC’s own sound,” first worked outside the Howard Theatre as a young child, calling: “Shoes shined, shoes shined, five cents, a nickel, or a half a dime!”
As the neighborhood went, so did the Howard. Although the theater escaped damage in the riots of April 1968, audiences thereafter avoided the riot-scarred neighborhood. The Howard closed in 1970, reopened in 1974, and closed again. Rehabilitation started in 2010.
For years, the stage doors of the Howard opened to Wiltberger Street near the Wonder Bread Bakery, formerly Dorsch’s White Cross Bakery. Fans would linger amid the aroma of fresh bread and the promise of stardust, watching for performers bound for U Street night spots or an after-show soiree at Cecilia’s. This area’s bakeries included two others near Howard University: Corby (later Continental) and Bond Bread. Baseball fans leaving Griffith Stadium remember stopping for fresh doughnuts on the way home.
Near the Howard Theatre at 614 S Street was Jean Clore’s Guest House and after-hours club. “Well-known dignitaries from every walk of life” stayed at Clore’s “swanky homey hotel,” according to the Black press of the 1930s. In 1982 the New Community Church moved into the building.
[Illustration captions: ]
Howard Theatre manager Shep Allen with Fats Waller at the Howard, 1939, as Waller presents a check to a Police Boys Club representative.
Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
1. Redd Foxx
Star Collection, DC Public Library; ©Washington Post
2. James Brown
Star Collection, DC Public Library; ©Washington Post
3. Ruth Brown
Moorland Springarn Research Center
4. Billy Eckstine
Washington Post
5. LaVern Baker
Washington Post
6. Leigh Whipper
Collection of Carole Ione Lewis
7. Chuck Brown
Washington Post
Hotelier and society figure Jean Clore, 1938
Afro-American Newspapers Archives and Research Center
A delivery truck for Dorsch’s White Cross Bread, 1926
Library of Congress
Cecelia Penny Scott, right, with husband James Scott, right rear, and patrons in her popular restaurant and rooming house across T Street from this sign, 1958.
Collection of Henry Whitehead.
Marker is on T Street, NW east of 7th Street, NW, on the left when traveling east.
Courtesy hmdb.org
