The Royal

The Royal Theater was once the center of African American art and entertainment in Baltimore. During a time when African Americans were prohibited from entering (white only) mainstream theaters, the Royal provided a venue for them to enjoy shows performed by some of the most successful African American entertainers in the world. Greats like Duke Ellington and Billy Holiday graced the halls of the Royal on a weekly basis.
The club opened its door is 1922 and fortunately experienced an immense amount of success. Many Baltimore residents today remember it as Baltimore’s version of “Broadway”, or as fellow fans of that era would call it, a major leg of the “Chitlin’ Circuit”. The Royal had several sisters in the Chitlin Circuit, which were the Cotton Club, Apollo Theater, Uptown Theatre, Ritz Theatre, Hippodrome, and Victory Grill. It is important to mention that even though African Americans were always the headline performers, whites loved to frequent these nightspots as well. Which is something that needs to be considered when studying race relations, because when places like the Royal and surrounding theaters or clubs were jamming, almost everyone black and white partied together, participated, and had a great time.
Another important part of the Royal’s legacy often forgotten is its role in the black business community. I say this because its status as a major entertainment draw bought patrons from all over the city and its surrounding areas. The rise of racial integration led to the destruction of the Royal in 1971, but its memories will out live its short existence. These stories are explained best in some of the articles I found in African American room at the Pratt.

Black Residents

The African American room at the Pratt library has an immense amount of information about Pennsylvania Avenue. I stayed there for about two hours on Saturday and came across about two-dozen news articles. Many of which were from old out of print papers like The Evening Sun. Over the next week or so I will post the visible articles to the site so that everyone can see what the Avenue looked like before its dramatic decline.
The City Paper article I posted touched on the early ethnicities that frequented Pennsylvania Avenue before the black population arrived. It also sites the late Alvin K. Brunson, former director of exhibits and programs for the Center for Cultural Education. (We will be using this center as a source in the near future)
Brunson credits the rise of the suburbs and the migration of blacks to West Baltimore from downtown as the primary reason for racial changes on Pennsylvania Avenue. African Americans studied the advancement of other ethnicities and implemented their community building strategies. Brunson states “Pennsylvania Avenue did not become a predominately Black community until the 1920s. With the rise in Black churches, schools, night clubs, restaurants, hotels, barbers shops, beauty salons, insurance companies, banks, newspapers and a thriving medical facility named Provident Hospital, located at 1514 Division Street, Pennsylvania Avenue became a thriving community. Because Baltimore at that time was a segregated city, many Black residents considered Pennsylvania Avenue “a City within a City.”
In 1920, the census showed that 90 percent of Baltimore’s Black population lived along Pennsylvania Avenue. “The Avenue,” as it is affectionately known, was in the heart of the Black community. It played the most important role in the development of Black culture in Baltimore. Day and night, this street was always crowded. It was where Blacks attended school, worked, and shopped. At night, this street became a place where people hung out, listened to live music, ate, danced and spent their money fulfilling their wants and desires”.

Some of the more popular venues were…

1) The Royal
2) Gamby’s
3) Sphinx Club
4) Club Casino
5) Ike Dixon’s Comedy Club

Many of these once Jewish or white owned businesses were successful, but The Royal was by far the most popular of them all. Next week were going to dedicate a whole blog to the Royal Theater.

Slow Week

This was a slow research week. None of my interviews came through so I am prepping for next week. Some of my advisors recommended the Maryland room over at Enoch Pratt. Hopefully I could go there and get some pictures and oral histories of Avenue residents.

I would also like to shift the direction of this project. Don't get me wrong, a blog about Pennsylvania Avenue is great; however, I feel like I am going over information that everyone already knows. So hopefully by the end of next week , I can formulate some sort of specific question about the Avenue which would allow me to move away from a more general study.