Segregated theaters in American cities predate the Civil War and Atlanta's first theater, the Atheneum, was no exception. As Atlanta grew after the war, new theaters adopted the color line for seating and sometimes entrances. When the “Fabulous Fox Theatre,” constructed at a cost of over $3 million (the equivalent of about $41 million today), opened on Christmas Day in 1929, it had separate and unequal accommodations for its African American patrons.
In this video, Gwen Middlebrooks tells her story to Dr. Timothy Crimmins about visiting the Fox Theatre in the late 1950s and the early 1960s, experiencing the movie theater from both sides of the color line. Later she would be one of over 100 students from the Atlanta University Center colleges who were arrested after joining sit-ins in lunch rooms and cafeterias in downtown Atlanta.
On April 30, 1962, the color line was abolished at the Fox Theatre. Downtown theaters followed next, and then neighborhood theaters.
Funding support provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Landmarks of American History Program.