Qualla: Lincoln Theatre (Washington, D.C.)

Lincoln Theatre (Washington, D.C.): Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit APK, CC BY 4.0. Before Duke Ellington was Duke Ellington, he was a teenage piano player named Edward Kennedy Ellington from Washington, D.C., learning his craft within walking distance of the Lincoln Theatre. The Lincoln opened in 1922, two years after Ellington left for Harlem. He came back to play it. So did most of the major jazz figures of the next four decades - because for most of that time, the Lincoln Theatre was one of the few major venues in Washington where Black Americans could perform, watch, or simply be seated. U Street, in the years before integration, was called Black Broadway. The Lincoln was its largest house. Next door, then as now, was Ben's Chili Bowl.

Image: APK | CC BY 4.0

Lincoln Theatre (Washington, D.C.): Crandall and Geare

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Maguire, CC BY 2.0. Construction began in summer 1921. Architect Reginald Geare designed the building in collaboration with Harry Crandall, a local theater operator whose chain of D.C. movie houses had become one of the most successful in the country. The Lincoln opened in 1922 as a venue for silent...

Image: Mike Maguire | CC BY 2.0

Lincoln Theatre (Washington, D.C.): Black Broadway

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ajay_suresh, CC BY 4.0. Through the 1930s and 40s and into the 50s, U Street ran on a current the rest of segregated Washington could not generate. Howard University, two blocks north, fed the neighborhood with students and intellectuals. The U Street Corridor housed Black-owned businesses, Black-owned ...

Image: ajay_suresh | CC BY 4.0

Lincoln Theatre (Washington, D.C.): 1968 and the Long Closure

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kurt Kaiser, CC0. On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis. Within hours, U Street was on fire. The riots that followed gutted the corridor - shops burned, businesses fled, residents left. The Lincoln Theatre survived the flames but lost its audience. The neighborhood entered...

Image: Kurt Kaiser | CC0

Lincoln Theatre (Washington, D.C.): Twenty Years of Struggle

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Brown, CC BY-SA 3.0. The reopened Lincoln did not have an easy path back. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s the theater required regular financial aid from the D.C. government to stay afloat. Programming was eclectic - the annual LGBT film festival Reel Affirmations ran here from 1998 to 2008. The Black...

Image: Tim Brown | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lincoln Theatre (Washington, D.C.): I.M.P. and the Second Life

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit APK PRAISE JEEBUS, CC BY-SA 3.0. In June 2013, Mayor Vincent Gray's office announced the new operator: I.M.P., the company behind the 9:30 Club, Washington's most successful independent music venue. I.M.P. began booking the Lincoln that fall, and the room has run nearly continuously since. Janelle Monáe opened w...

Image: APK PRAISE JEEBUS | CC BY-SA 3.0