The civil rights movement played out in courtrooms, churches, lunch counters, and streets. It also played out in theatres. Broadway artists fought segregation in the audience, broke barriers on stage, and lent their visibility to the movement. Here's a look at some of those moments, and what they tell us about the theatre community's place in American civic life.
For more context, see our history of Broadway's legacy of social change and our look at musicals that changed public opinion.
In the 1940s, the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., one of the country's most important stops for touring Broadway shows, refused to admit Black audience members. After a Black theatregoer was turned away in December 1946, civil rights groups including the NAACP picketed the theatre for months.
In April 1947, Actors' Equity joined the fight. The union announced that its members would refuse to perform at the National unless it integrated by June 1948, a deadline later moved to August 1, 1948. Helen Hayes, then Equity's vice president, refused to appear there and instead performed to sold-out, integrated audiences at the Olney Theatre in Maryland.
Rather than integrate, the National's owner turned the house into a movie theatre in 1948. Equity's members held the line. In 1952, under new management, the National reopened as an integrated theatre with Call Me Madam. It's an early example of theatre workers using their collective voice for civil rights, and it worked.
On March 11, 1959, Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. It was the first play by a Black woman to be produced on Broadway, and it was directed by Lloyd Richards, a landmark moment for Black directors on Broadway. The cast included Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, and Louis Gossett.
The play follows a Black family on Chicago's South Side as they try to build a better life, including their plan to move into a white neighborhood. Hansberry drew on her own family's experience. The New York Drama Critics' Circle named it the best American play of the season. For many audience members, it was the first time a Broadway stage had treated the inner lives of a Black family with that depth and seriousness.
Hansberry knew that story firsthand. When she was a child, her father bought a house in a white Chicago neighborhood covered by a racially restrictive covenant. The family's fight over that home went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in Hansberry v. Lee (1940), which ruled in the family's favor on procedural grounds. Years later, his daughter put that kind of struggle at the center of a Broadway play.
Many theatre artists were active in the movement itself. Actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, who met during a 1946 Broadway play about a Black veteran confronting the Ku Klux Klan, became longtime civil rights activists. They took part in the 1963 March on Washington and often staged benefit performances for civil rights organizations.
Davis also wrote for the stage about the struggle. His Broadway comedy Purlie Victorious (1961), in which he and Dee both starred, used satire to take on segregation in the South. Theatre gave the movement another way to reach audiences: through laughter, story, and empathy rather than argument alone.
Each of these stories changed something concrete. A major theatre in the nation's capital integrated. A Black woman's play reached Broadway and won its top critics' prize. Artists with large audiences used them to support a movement for equal rights.
They also changed what audiences expected from Broadway. After A Raisin in the Sun, it was harder to argue that Black stories didn't belong on the main stage. The work of later generations of Black playwrights, directors, and performers built on those early breakthroughs.
The lesson isn't only about the past. The Washington fight shows that theatre workers acting together can change institutions. The careers of artists like Davis and Dee show that visibility comes with an opportunity to help.
Today, the theatre community supports many causes, from health and housing for artists to education and the environment. Our guide to Broadway charities and nonprofits covers the organizations doing that work. Broadway for Democracy focuses on one piece of it: helping fans and theatre workers take part in civic life. We're nonpartisan, and we never tell anyone how to vote. We help people register, get informed, and show up.
Yes. In 1947, Actors' Equity told the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., that its members would stop performing there unless the theatre admitted Black audiences. The theatre closed to live shows in 1948 rather than integrate, then reopened as an integrated house in 1952.
Lorraine Hansberry. Her play A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway on March 11, 1959.
Yes. Many entertainers took part in the 1963 March on Washington, including stage and screen actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, who were longtime civil rights activists.
No. We're a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit. We focus on participation, like registering and voting, never on telling people how to vote.
Help bring civic participation to theatre audiences. Donate to Broadway for Democracy.
