Hippodrome Theater, around 1959
Grade Level
Elementary, High, Middle
Time Period
1951-1999: Late 20th Century
Theme
African American History, Civil rights, Jim Crow
Resource Type
Primary Source
Download Collections in the Classroom: Hippodrome (pdf)
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
- How did segregation impact communities?
- How did having a movie theater impact the Jackson Ward neighborhood?
CONTEXT
Second Street, located in the Jackson Ward neighborhood, was the hub of commercial activity in Richmond’s Black community during the early 20th century. Although the heyday of the Hippodrome was during the 1910s and 1920s, the mid-20th century brought renewed activity to the theater showcasing nationally known performers such as Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway and James Brown. In 1945, a fire damaged the theater, and later repairs to the building made the outside façade in the Art Deco style. By then, the Hippodrome was strictly used as a movie theater. Before the integration of public facilities in the 1960s, the Hippodrome was one of the few Richmond movie theaters open to African Americans. The theater closed in the early 1970s until the Stallings family reopened the Hippodrome in 2011 as an events and entertainment venue.
