| |
| author |
Azra Ozan
| | title |
If I Had a Hammer, I'd Knock Down the Velvet Rope: Integrated Music Venues and the Politics of Racial Inclusion in Civil Rights America
| | abstract |
This thesis examines how integrated concerts and music venues in the 1950s-60s
challenged segregationist policies, amplified the messages of the civil rights movement, and
reshaped public attitudes toward racial mixing in the United States. Moving beyond institutional
approaches in political science, it foregrounds cultural spaces as sites of political action.
Focusing on case studies in the Northeast – New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island – it
analyzes venues including Café Society, the Apollo Theater, Springwood Avenue clubs in
Asbury Park, and the Newport Jazz, Folk, and Rebels Festivals. Drawing on archival records,
newspapers, promotional materials, and lyrical interpretation, these venues are shown to have
brought Black performers and interracial audiences into shared spaces where racial hierarchy
was actively renegotiated through everyday interaction. Performances communicated civil rights
ideas by translating abstract demands into communal experiences beyond formal protest settings,
while also revealing persistent tensions, including unequal power relations, commercial
pressures, and public resistance. Throughout, Aldon D. Morris' concept of "indigenous
organization" is utilized to show how Black communities mobilized collective identity and
autonomy within these performance spaces. Rather than viewing venues solely as sites of
interracial contact, this framework captures how Black performers and audiences asserted control
over meaning and social interaction, even in spaces that were not Black-owned. These
environments enabled the outward projection of Black identity and the communication of
political messages on their own terms. As such, integrated music venues functioned not only as
points of racial contact, but as contested sites of Black agency that challenged the power
hierarchy and contributed to broader processes of social change.
| | school |
The College of Liberal Arts, Drew University
| | degree |
B.S. (2026)
|
| advisor |
Sangay Mishra
|
| full text | AOzan.pdf |
| |
