Charlie's Place: A Black Supper Club in Myrtle Beach

Charlie's Place, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, was a supper club and a busy hub of Black business from the 1930s to the 1960s. It is now part of the African American Civil Rights Network.

A stop on the Chitlin Circuit

Charlie Fitzgerald, a Black entrepreneur, opened the club with his wife Sarah in 1937. Under Jim Crow it quickly became a stop on the Chitlin Circuit: an informal network of Black-owned venues across the East, South and Midwest where Black audiences could go and where the era's Black stars played. Artists on the circuit included Billie Holiday, Otis Redding, Little Richard and The Drifters.

Club, home and motel

The club stood in the Booker T. Washington neighborhood, right beside the Fitzgeralds' home and a small motel, both theirs.

• The Fitzgerald Motel, built in 1948, housed Black entertainers shut out of whites-only hotels.
• The Green Book: in 1953 the motel and the club were both listed in the Green Book (Airline Edition). The Green Books, first called the Negro Motorist Green Book, told Black travelers where they could safely eat and sleep on the road.

Guides and a growing number of Black businesses did not end the danger: Black travelers still faced intimidation from white locals and officials.

The Klan attack of 1950

Charlie's Place welcomed both Black and white customers, and that made it a target of the Ku Klux Klan. In 1950 the Klan paraded through the neighborhood. Later that day members came back and fired into the club, wounding a number of patrons. Charlie Fitzgerald was severely beaten.

The civil rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall helped Fitzgerald and the injured assert their legal rights. Klan members were charged as a result, but never prosecuted.

The site today

• Late 1960s: the club was torn down.
• 2017: the City of Myrtle Beach bought the club's site, the Fitzgerald family home and what was left of the motel.
• Now: an interpretive sign marks where the club stood. The city has restored the surviving buildings as a museum and a community center, and the site hosts festivals and events, among them the three-day Myrtle Beach Jazz Festival.
• 2021: Charlie's Place joined the African American Civil Rights Network.

About the Network

The African American Civil Rights Network recognizes the civil rights movement and the sacrifices of those who fought discrimination and segregation. Created by the African American Civil Rights Act of 2017 and coordinated by the National Park Service, it tells the movement's stories through public and private places and resources.

Sources

Based on "Charlie's Place (Myrtle Beach, South Carolina)," National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. Visitor information: Charlie's Place.