The Regal Theater and Black Culture

Chronicling over forty years of critical changes in African-American expressive and popular culture, covering diverse forms of music, dance and comedy, the Regal Theatre (1928-1968) was the largest and most architecturally splendid movie-stage-show venue ever constructed for a Black community.

In this history of that theatre, Clovis E. Semmes reveals the political, economic and business realities of cultural production, and the institutional inequalities that circumscribed Black life.