Some how Vernon and I attended I believe the first 2nd Street Festival (year unknown).
“In its heyday — generally considered to be the 1940s and’50s — Second Street was part of the “chitlin circuit,” a string of venues up and down the East Coast and throughout the South that were safe and acceptable for black musicians, comedians and other entertainers to perform at during the age of racial segregation.
There were speakeasies, nip joints, dance halls, hotel lobbies, ballrooms and clubs with names like Black and Tan, Waltz Dream and Happy Land .
There were black theaters such as The Globe and Hippodrome and black hotels. There was even a dance hall atop A.D. Price Funeral Home.
Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald were among the nationally known artists to perform in Jackson Ward.”
2nd Street Festival
Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 1-2
Saturday: Noon to 7 p.m.
Sunday: Noon to 6 p.m
