Going to the Rex Theater in 1936, Phoenix, Arizona


If you're interested in Phoenix history, and have never heard of the Rex Theater, it's not surprising. I had never heard of it until yesterday, when one of my Phoenix history friends sent me a photo of Washington between 2nd and 3rd Street in the 1930s.

And it got me to thinking about how much history is just brushed aside, for various reasons. And then ultimately it gets lost forever. And there are people who'd rather not think about what segregated Phoenix was like, and I understand. But it's a part of the history of Phoenix, and I care about it. Let's time-travel to 1936 and go to the Rex Theater.


This ad, by the way, ran in the Arizona Gleam, which was founded in Phoenix, Arizona, in November 1929 by Ayra Hackett, the only African American female newspaper owner in the state. Here's a direct link to the Library of Congress if you'd like to read more: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/data/batches/az_dyingcowboy_ver02/data/sn95060626/00414216808/1936110601/0383.pdf


If this is all new to you, I suggest that you take a good hard look at what life was like at the time for black people, I suggest that you Google the "Green Book", and find out about more about how black people dealt with segregation. There's a reason that people don't want to talk about it, it was horrible, and degrading. Times have definitely gotten a lot better, with a long way to go, and I'll leave it at that, for better minds than mine to explain.

Right now, let's go to the Rex. We'll be fine there. You're black, and since I have a drop of black blood inside of me, that's all that matters. Hold my hand, it hurts. The Broadway hit "Showboat", which is now a movie, is playing. Note that there's no address on the ad, and there would have been no reason for it. Phoenix was a small town in 1936, and safe places for black people were smaller still.

Thank you for watching "Showboat" at the Rex with me!

If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me
Read more