Classroom

The Mary Anderson Theater was a popular theater for downtown and suburban Louisville residents. It was opened in 1907 as a vaudeville house. In the 1920s it was converted to a film theater where it showed many popular films over the 20th century, especially Warner Brothers films. It was named after the famous Hollywood actress born in Louisville, Mary Anderson.&nbsp; Although the theater closed in the early 1970s, it was a location in the 1960s that for many was a place of struggle and of hope. African Americans dreamed of being admitted to the theater to watch upcoming films but were constantly denied due to Jim Crow practices. This particular business was targeted because of its high visibility downtown. Protest organizers knew that publicity and newspaper coverage would sway public opinion&nbsp;and to eventually give them admittance to the theater. Because this theater was constantly busy, it&nbsp;made it an ideal location for African-Americans to conduct their demonstrations. Students would usually walk around outside singing songs of liberation, holding signs, or just sit on the sidewalk. Many individuals were arrested regularly for demonstrating and usually charged with either disturbing the peace or blocking the sidewalk. The theater remained open during demonstrations so their cause always had an audience. For example, on February 23, 1961, demonstrations were held across downtown Louisville. Six teenagers were arrested at the Mary Anderson Theater for disorderly conduct and delinquency. In response to the protests, a number of businesses agreed to curb Jim Crow practices, and the campaign was considered a success.&nbsp;

Students arrested outside the Mary Anderson Theater wait for the wagon to take them.

The Mary Anderson Theater was opened in 1907 and in the 1920s was converted to a film theater. This theater was regularly busy which is why it became a site for civil rights demonstrations. Protesters knew this would be an ideal location to bring publicity and attention to their cause. 1961 is when most demonstrations took place in downtown Louisville in the wake of the Greensboro and Nashville sit-ins. 

Mary Anderson Theater Demonstration Site

Instructor

This walking tour covers only three blocks but includes nine civil rights demonstrations that occurred in downtown Louisville between 1960 and the passage of the city's public accommodations law in 1963. The walking tour includes restaurants such as the Blue Boar Cafeteria, department stores such as Kaufman-Straus, theaters such as Loew's Theater, and the Brown Hotel. Many of the entries were made by students at the University of Louisville under the direction of Dr. Lara Kelland.

The NAACP Youth Council and CORE rallied a massive
campaign, during which hundreds of African American students joined protests against segregation in the spring and summer of 1960. Sit-ins were held in the Kaufman-Straus Department Store, Stewart's Department Store, the Blue Boar restaurant, and other locations in downtown Louisville's 4th Street shopping district. The students and community leaders increased their efforts the following year, introducing a "Buy Nothing New for Easter" campaign where 75,000 participants vowed that they would not purchase anything from any store that discriminated against Black customers. The protests led the management of Kaufman and Stewart's to request negotiation in 1961, but neither store proceeded towards integration. The joint department store sit-ins began under the leadership of Raoul Cunningham on
February 9, 1961. On February 20, the police arrested
Cunningham and four teenagers. By the spring of 1961, over 700 residents of Louisville had been arrested--more than in any other city in the nation. Between 1961 and 1962, African Americans continued their pickets, boycotts, and sit-ins, seriously disrupting business in the downtown area. Recognizing that these protests&nbsp;threatened their city's economy and might also&nbsp;disrupt the Kentucky Derby,&nbsp;Louisville businesses began to serve Black patrons, and the city became the first major city south of the Mason-Dixon Line to bar racial&nbsp;discrimination&nbsp;in public&nbsp;accommodations in the spring of 1963.

African Americans in Louisville protested segregation throughout the 1950s with mixed results. Though school integration passed in 1956, much of the rest of Louisville life remained racially segregated. The anti-segregation movement reached a critical mass in February 1960 when the a delegation of white and Black community leaders expressed frustration at the failure of the city council or Mayor Bruce Hoblitzell to support their demand for a municipal ordinance banning segregation. In the spring of 1961, in part inspired by the successes seen in Greensboro, NC, the African American community effectively acted to organize major stand-ins in local department stores.

1961 Campaign to End Racial Segregation - Fourth Street Shopping District

Founded by Henry Kaufman in 1879, Kaufman-Straus was one of the two largest department stores in the city of Louisville, specializing in women's clothing, furs, and linens and also some menswear.&nbsp; In January 1961, Raoul Cunningham,&nbsp;president of the NAACP, united the NAACP Youth Council and CORE into a mass campaign.Beginning on February 9, the joint campaign began stand-ins at Kaufman-Strauss and Stewart’s department stores.&nbsp; At the same time, adult members of the NAACP introduced the "Nothing New for Easter" campaign, a boycott of downtown businesses which continued until May and ended after the 1961 Kentucky Derby.&nbsp; This consumers’ boycott had the potential to keep 75,000 Black&nbsp;residents from buying any items from the downtown Louisville&nbsp;businesses, also depriving the downtown businesses of 18 million dollars a year. By the end of February, Kaufman-Strauss and Stewart’s opened negotiations.&nbsp; The sit-ins forced the manager of Kaufman-Straus to close the Charl-Mont Tea Room.&nbsp; It was not until the public accommodations ordinance was passed in 1963 that African-Americans were finally served in the store's restaurants.&nbsp; On May 14, 1963 the Louisville Board of Aldermen passed an ordinance for open accommodations, which&nbsp;finally gave&nbsp;Louisville&nbsp;a policy of nondiscrimination for public accommodations.

This historic department store was targeted for sit-ins because African-Americans were denied service in their restaurants. In February 1960 student members of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and members of NAACP Youth Council protested in front of the store. The building is now home part of Fourth Street Live and home to the Sports & Social Club among other businesses.

Kaufman-Straus Department Store

The Blue Boar Cafeteria's location downtown made it a quick and easy place for downtown workers and shoppers to get home-style food at a good price. This food establishment was affordable for people of all financial backgrounds and would have been ideal for African-American workers and shoppers downtown as well. Because they were denied service by these food establishments, protesters targeted the Blue Boar as well as many other downtown restaurants for sit-ins and demonstrations to advocate for their cause. In the wake of the Greensboro and Nashville sit-ins, Raul Cunningham united CORE and&nbsp;NAACP Youth Council to organize individuals to implement sit-ins, squat-ins, demonstrations, picketing, stand-ins, and more at downtown Louisville locations. This included restaurants, department stores, convenience stores, and more. Mostly high school students participated in demonstrations but adults were present as well.&nbsp;On April 24, 1961, one particular demonstration and sit-in was organized by Frank L. Stanley Jr. at the Blue Boar Cafeteria. Police stood by for about a hour while the demonstration took place and when they asked protesters to leave and they refused, 129 arrests were made on the charge of "breaching the peace."&nbsp; The Blue Boar is one of the many sites of sit-ins and demonstrations documented and land-marked because of the violent history associated with it. Many protesters were targeted by merchant policemen and customers. Prior to demonstrations, only 10 of 135 restaurants would provide service for people of color. After the demonstrations, only another 24 opened their doors for all. It was not until 1963 that the remaining 111 restaurants opened their doors for everyone due to legislation. After the 1960s, these restaurants started to decline and by the 1980s many has closed due to fast food chains and urbanization.&nbsp;

The Blue Boar Cafeteria was a regional home-style food chain primarily located in southern states. Organized by CORE and Raoul Cunningham, in the wake of the Greensboro and Nashville sit-ins, demonstrations and sit-ins were held in front of the Blue Boar and many other restaurants in downtown Louisville to advocate for desegregation. The Blue Boar Cafeteria was one of the sites of escalated violence by merchant policemen and customers against protesters. After protesting, only 24 of 135 restaurants opened their doors to people of color; the remaining restaurants did not welcome all races until the public accommodations law was implemented  in 1963.

Sit-In Demonstration Site Blue Boar Cafeteria 

Inspired by the success of the student-led lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro, NC and Nashville, TN, pockets of disorganized protests began in Louisville in 1960. On February 9, 1961, students working with the local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) began the 1961&nbsp;sit-in protests at this location. The group chose Stewarts because it was a local company and the most prestigious of all the downtown&nbsp;stores. When the students were arrested, African Americans and a few progressive whites came together to launch a city-wide protest movement against segregation.&nbsp; Under the leadership of Raoul Cunningham, the NAACP and CORE had united the month prior and the arrest of the student demonstrators here at Stewarts on February 9th led to a growing number of both supporters and opponents. The two civil rights organizations&nbsp;worked together and held sit-ins and stand-in's throughout the entire store and also occupied the nearby &nbsp;Kaufman-Strauss department store.&nbsp;On February 20, the police arrested Cunningham and four teenagers. These numbers soared to over 700 throughout the duration of the campaign. The campaign grew to include a massive boycott called "Nothing New for Easter," during which the 75,000 African-American citizens of Louisville refused to buy any items from downtown businesses.As more protests continued, both department stores, Kauffman-Strauss and Stewart's, opened negotiations with the protesters. By late April, more civil rights protesters had been arrested in Louisville (nearly 700) than any other city. When these negotiations ended inconclusively, the protests continued until the summer of 1961, when most protests dwindled as the mayor's office got involved in the business negotiations. Stewarts refused to serve Black customers at their lunch counters until the city intervened. Finally, on May 14, 1963, over two years following the start of the campaign, the Louisville Board of Aldermen passed an ordinance for open accommodations, effectively ending racial segregation at Stewarts and the other city businesses that had held out through the two years of protests. The store closed in 1985.&nbsp;

Some viewed Louisville, KY as a regional leader in race relations in the late 1950s, following the 1956 peace passage of school integration laws. However, in the early 1960s much of the rest of public society still remained segregated. In February 1961, one year following the Greensboro, NC lunch counter sit-ins, the NAACP Youth Council and CORE rallied a massive campaign of peaceful protests, during which over 700 people were incarcerated for their involvement. The movement continued through to the summer when the mayor opened negotiations with city businesses hoping to end the conflict with a compromise that would satisfy African American residents without costing him support among the white majority who believed that African Americans should be "patient" and wait for stores to voluntarily end their Jim Crow policies.

Sit-in demonstrations occurred here at the flagship store of the Stewart's Dry Goods Company Building, a regional department chain that was headquartered in Louisville. This particular protest was led by high school students who occupied space in the store's lunch counter after being denied service because of their race.  

Louisville Sit-Ins at Stewart's Dry Goods, 1961

History of the Palace



From the mid-nineteenth century until the 1920s, St. Joseph's
Infirmary stood on the present-day site of the Palace Theater. Owned by the
Nazareth Literary and Benevolent Institute of Nelson County, Kentucky, the
infirmary was sold in 1926 in preparation for opening a new hospital on Preston
Street. Loew's Theaters hired Austrian-American architect John Eberson
(1875-1954) to design a first-run cinema for the 4th Street site as an outlet
for Columbia and Metro-Goldwin-Mayer. Despite having no formal architectural
training, Eberson had changed careers in 1908, seven years after arriving in
the United States, from electrical engineer to architect, and achieved fame in
the field for his "atmospheric" theater designs.

For Louisville's Loew's Theater, Eberson designed a lavish, jewel-toned
grand lobby and theater (seating 3,300) in Spanish Baroque
"Churriguerresque" style, with alcoves, niches, fountains, statues
and carvings of over 140 famous figures, and a ceiling inspired by a National
Geographic photograph of the night sky with the lights placed to approximate
actual stars.&nbsp;The theater opened on September 1, 1928, showing The Old Gray Horse and Excess Baggage and a performance by Jan
Garber's band and Haden Read on the 1000-pipe Wurlitzer organ. Though
Louisville, and particularly 4th Street, boasted a number of theaters during the
1920s and 1930s, Loew's was the largest in the state and one of the largest in
the region, heralded by Louisville's Courier-Journal
as an "architectural marvel." It is also only one of two cinemas of
the era still standing on Louisville's renewed hotspot, 4th Street. Among its
famous out-of-town frequenters was gangster Al Capone, who would travel through
underground steam heat tunnels running between the theater and the Seelbach
Hotel during Prohibition. During the 1937 Flood, the theater's organ was raised
above the high water level to save it from destruction.



In 1948, Loew's became the Loew's United Artist Theater, then the
United Artist Theater in the mid-1950s, and the United Artists/Penthouse
Theater in 1963, when the the 900-seat balcony was enclosed to accommodate a
second screen. The first film shown in the Penthouse was Lawrence of Arabia.&nbsp;The theater was one of six local theaters identified by the NAACP for demonstrations in 1961&nbsp;because of their refusal to admit African Americans. As images of arrests appeared in the local newspaper The Courier Journal, the number of demonstrators and demonstrations increased outside the theater. Over 170 students and 10 adults were arrested during one of the largest demonstrations held during the same year. Following the passage of the public accommodations ordinance, the theater continued to prosper through the seventies as a first-run movie palace.In 1978, it was renamed the Louisville Palace,
but closed due to financial difficulties soon afterward. Purchased and renovated
the same year by John Siegel, the Palace reopened in 1981 as a live
entertainment venue, but continued to struggle and periodically close
throughout the next four years, in spite of its addition to the National
Register of Historic Places in 1982. It closed for nine years between 1985 and
1994, becoming one of downtown Louisville's ten most endangered historic
buildings for a time. 

The Palace Today 

With new ownership and restoration,
the Palace reopened in 1994 with a sellout Yanni concert and rededication. Despite
changing hands from one theater and entertainment company to another since that
time, the Palace has regained its place as a Louisville fixture, featuring
Broadway and other theatrical performances from local to international artists;
classic film screenings in the summer; and concerts and comedians. The restored
space is also a popular venue for weddings, corporate and social events,
dinners and fundraisers, renowned for its barrel-vaulted "ceiling of
celebrities", "Faces Lobby", Spanish courtyard garden-style
theater, and several reported ghosts. The Faces Lobby also holds monthly
concerts featuring local bands.

The Louisville Palace Theater opened in 1928 as Loew's Theater. It features a Spanish Baroque style with arcades, balconies, and turrets. In 1961, the theater was boycotted by Civil Rights activists because of their refusal to admit African Americans. Today, the theater operates as the elaborate setting for live performances, concerts, and summer cinema classics screenings. Painted in bursts of jewel tones, the Palace is heavily ornamented with alcoves, balconies, statues, and busts, and its theater ceiling imitates a starry, cobalt nighttime sky. 

Louisville Palace Theater

History of Kentucky TheaterThe Kentucky Theater was opened October 6, 1921, and was designed by Joseph &amp; Joseph. It was originally operated by the Modern Amusement Company. A 1940 remodeling increased seating from 780 to 1,100 by the addition of a balcony. The theater’s color scheme and decor was also changed at this time. In 1984 it became home for a multimedia slide presentation promoting Kentucky tourism, but the show was short-lived and in 1986 the building closed. Ten years later the City of Louisville marked the abandoned building for demolition.Local entrepreneur George Stinson bought the historic theater at auction to save it from the wrecking ball and in 1998 gave a no-cost lease to a band of volunteers who created a non-profit arts organization, called the Kentucky Theater Project, Inc. Since that time, organization founders worked with more than 200 volunteers to transform the Kentucky Theater into a vibrant community arts center that was due to bring new life to Fourth Street.In 2008, the Kentucky Theater was revamped into an upscale gourmet food mart, known as the Theater Square Marketplace.History of Ohio TheaterThe Ohio was built in 1941. &nbsp;Seating was listed at 900. It was located next door to the larger Kentucky Theatre. The Ohio Theatre closed as a motion picture venue in 1965.The facade and marquee of the building are all that remain of this theater today, along with its large “Ohio” vertical sign. Part of the storefront portion of the theater building still exists, as well. Unfortunately, the remainder of the Ohio Theater was demolished.Before a 1948 Supreme Court decision broke up a&nbsp;monopoly, theater chains and movie studios were joined at the hip. This meant that &nbsp;pictures from Columbia and Warner Brothers landed at the Kentucky or the Ohio. Civil Rights Sit In DemonstrationsIn 1961, numerous sit in demonstrations by&nbsp;&nbsp;African Americans, led by&nbsp;young people, largely area high school students occurred. Under the leadership of organizations including the NAACP and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), sit-ins, picket marches, and other forms of non-violent protests by African Americans and some white supporters began in earnest in February 1961. City police arrested protesters on charges of delinquency and disorderly conduct, but the demonstrations continued.Many of the demonstrations centered on the 4th Street shopping district and the Kentucky/Ohio Theaters. There, African Americans were often discriminated against and harassed when attempting to make purchases or eat at certain restaurants.

On Fourth Street, one of the historic main drags of downtown Louisville, Kentucky, there's an area called the Theater District. It's a bit of a misnomer, since there is only one theater in the area. It could be argued, however, that there are one and a half theaters, as the building was once the Kentucky Theater and a part of the Ohio Theater is still there. 

Kentucky/Ohio Theater

The opening of the J. Grahm Brown's "Brown Hotel" was one of the most anticipated events of 1923 in Louisville. On October 25, 1923, 1,923 people attended the hotel's first opening dinner and dance party. The next night another 1,200 guests attended the second opening dinner. The following Saturday, it is said that a further 10,000 people flooded&nbsp;the hotel as it opened its doors to the general public for the first time. In retrospect, it appears that all the anticipation for the hotel was absolutely deserved, as the Brown Hotel transformed the city. The hotel was in no time at all the social center of Louisville. As the glory days of the 1920s continued, theaters, churches, and professional offices sprouted up around the hotel. J. Graham Brown even built his own theater near the hotel, which still&nbsp;today is in operation. People began referring to the&nbsp;neighborhood surrounding the hotel as the&nbsp;"magic corner," with so much of the life of Louisville converging in this special place at 4th and Broadway. During the Prohibition (which was in effect from the opening of the hotel until 1933), the hotel suffered for its effect on business. However, it survived, and names like Lily Pons, Al Jolson, and Queen Marie of Rumania are all a part of those early years. A very notable piece of its history was during the Flood of '37. The Ohio River, by which Louisville sits, crested 34.2 feet above flood level on January 27. However, the river did not return to normal levels until around mid-February. Nearly 1,000 residents of Louisville&nbsp;found refuge in the 15-story hotel during this time. The Brown finally found itself no longer struggling to survive during World War II, when soldiers from nearby Ft. Knox would seek a chance to put their struggles away for an evening at the Brown Hotel. The hotel hit its stride during this era and enjoyed a boom in business. During the spring of 1961 The Brown Hotel became one of the targets of the "Nothing New for Easter" boycotts.&nbsp; The boycott served as economic activism against local businesses which discriminated against African Americans and led to the accomplishment of Louisville's Public Accommodations Act. The protests resulted in the arrests of seven hundred, primarily Black, citizens who participated in the strike. &nbsp;<div> </div><div>A magnificent representation of the 1930s, The Brown Hotel displayed characteristics of early twentieth century architecture and reflectedthe context of the downtown Louisville's culture. The architectural achievements of The Brown Hotel earned positive impressions among the community for their hospitable accommodations to all attending patrons.&nbsp; The Brown hotel inspired a centralized hub of activity&nbsp;located in the Louisville Downtown area that aided the&nbsp;integration of&nbsp;social connectivity.</div> Today any visitor can ask the older staff for stories, and each will be able to recount the legends and tales of these different eras. It is a hotel absolutely packed with its unique history and beginnings.

In 1923, Louisville was the 34th largest city in America with a population of 235,000. That was the same year that J. Graham Brown opened the Georgian Revival-style hotel, in great anticipation of the local population and newspapers. The Brown Hotel would soon inspire an entire downtown rejuvenation effort that would come to include businesses, movie theaters, a residential community, and a parking garage. An ordinary hotel might not inspire so much rejuvenation, but this was the Brown Hotel, and it was not ordinary in any way, with its very first visitor in the guest register being David Lloyd George, former prime minister of Britain.

Brown Hotel 

Named for Indiana native and Louisville-resident&nbsp;J. Graham Brown, the Brown Theatre was modeled after New York's famed Music Box Theatre and opened on October 5, 1925 with Elise Janis in&nbsp;Puzzles. Show bookings decreased during the Great Depression (1930s), and the Fourth Avenue Amusement Company leased the theater as a movie theater at this time. Throughout the 1950s, the majority of Louisville's white-owned establishments located outside of the African American community either completely excluded African Americans or treated them significantly differently. Overall, the city was deeply and structurally segregated, and sit-ins began in downtown Louisville in 1956. Although the Brown Theatre had relaxed its policy to admit African American school children for the performance of the Ten Commandments, management did not permanently change its policies. Members of the NAACP Youth Council specifically protested the Brown Theatre on December 25, 1959, when the theater refused admittance to fifteen ticket-holding African Americans. The ticket-holders had received the&nbsp;tickets through the mail or reserved them by telephone for the theater's first public showing of "Porgy and &nbsp;Bess," an all African American cast. In response to why the theater turned away the African Americans, management cited the policy of all downtown first-run theaters. Demonstrations continued at the Brown Theatre until 1963, when a public accommodations ordinance was passed and the theater opened its doors to African Americans. (For more information&nbsp;on Louisville's civil rights movement, see link in the "Additional Information" section.) Theater renovations began in 1962 to return live performances to the theater, and a second renovation occurred in 1971. Following the 1971 renovation, the Louisville Board of Education purchased the theater thereafter and contracted it to the Louisville Theatrical Association. At this time, also, the theater was rechristened The Macauley Theatre. The original Macauley Theatre operated from 1873 to 1925--when the property was sold to the Starks Brothers and raized--and was located at 329 W. Walnut (now Muhammad Ali) Street. The Broadway-Brown Partnership formed in 1982 and purchased the theater and adjoining Brown Hotel to rejuvenate Louisville's southern end&nbsp;business district. In 1997, the Fund for the Arts--the nation's oldest united arts fund--acquired the theater and continued a $4.2 million restoration. The Fund for the Arts contracted the Kentucky Center to manage the theater, which continues to this day. After generous gifts from the W. L. Lyons Brown Foundation, the Brown family, and the Brown-Forman Corporation, the theater is re-rechristened&nbsp;W. L. Lyons Brown Theatre (1998). A 1998 gift from Owsley Brown Frazier leads to the main reception area being named the Frazier Lobby.

The Brown Theatre opened on October 5, 1925. Originally named after J. Graham Grown, the theater changed names in 1971 and again in 1998. It is now known as the W. L. Lyons Brown Theatre, owned by the Fund for the Arts, and managed by the Kentucky Center. The theater was also a site for ongoing civil rights protests against segregation from 1959 to 1963 and is included in Louisville's Downtown Civil Rights Trail.

Civil Rights Demonstrations in Downtown Louisville

Mary Anderson Theater Demonstration Site

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context