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The Lincoln Theatre
General Information

The Lincoln Theatre is a local theater located on U Street, NW between 12th and 13th Streets in Washington D.C.known

in its early days as the "Black Broadway". During the 1920's, 30's and 40's it was a famous African-American

oriented theater where well known artists of the era performed before its decline in 1954 when the Supreme Court

ruled segregation as "unconstitutional" and the black patrons moved to and attended the areas that were not available to them before. The Lincoln seats 1,250 people and is a performance arts center open for

reservation for special events.

The History

The Glory Days

First opened in 1922, the theater was described in a 1924 article in the Washington Afro-American as “perhaps the largest and finest for colored people exclusively anywhere in the United States” and "The Black Broadway." The Lincoln Theatre and its dance hall the Lincoln Colonnade prospered from the ‘20s to the ‘50s, hosting coming-out balls, Big Band dances and live acts, including Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Fats Whaler, Ella Fitzgerald, and many others. They also played first run movies unavailable to people of color in downtown theatres.

The Fall

In 1954 the Supreme Court decision on de-segregation ended those glory days. Residents and businesses moved. A wider variety of stories and restaurants were available to Black patrons, so the resulting economic weakness left the area vulnerable to the civil disorders that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The Colonnade was demolished in the 1960s, and the Lincoln closed in 1979.

The Rise

With the economic resurgence of the early 1980s, interest in the area re-bloomed. The District of Columbia government assumed ownership of the Theatre, and invested $7 million in restoring it to its original appearance, re-opening it in 1994.

See Also

The Lincoln Theatre official web site