Jo Long Theatre

History

The Jo Long Theatre is the 650-seat proscenium inside the Carver Community Cultural Center at 226 N. Hackberry Street, with a stage about 38 feet wide and 30 feet deep. The building was erected in 1918 as an African American community center, housed the Colored Library in the 1930s, and was renamed the Carver Library and Auditorium for George Washington Carver. From the 1940s through the civil rights era it presented Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Louis Armstrong; after a 1973 fight against demolition, the city reopened it in 1977 as the Carver Community Cultural Center. The theatre is named for longtime director Jo Long and books concerts, dance, theatre, and recitals.