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THE SHOW-DOWN Page 3 [[box]] Muggin' in Cleveland's Green Pastures With BUD DOUGLASS [[/box]] The Green Shows Thru Things haven't been the best out here in the old Sixth City and it isn't because we haven't tried to make it so... Cleveland is a town where there is little if any prejudice and segregation and discrimination... Here we don't know what it is to go to a big downtown movie and have someone tell us that we have to sit somewhere in particular... One, therefore, can readily see that when discrimination crops up it hits harder than anyone... The thing that makes it even worse is that the discrimination in its most recent form came right from one of our night clubs on the avenue. The Cedar Gardens, owned and overseen by a white man with a colored man, Ulysses S. Deering fronting for him... For months charges have been falling thick and fast that the white patrons are getting the best seats in the place and that when a colored party came in they would be told that the front tables were reserved... The tops came when the white owner of the place recently announced that his brother-in-law had purchased a half interest in the place and that he would take over the management of the night club... A storm of protest arose from the colored patrons and it is reported that some of the boys told Hecht the owner that if he fired Deering or demoted him that they would break up the place and as a result Deering still has his job... It strikes me as funny when I consider that this man Deering was the one that fought Hecht's fights with the colored patrons and then he tried to get rid of him... Ace Dance Promoter Elroy Willis, working as the Super Attraction is Cleveland's leading promoter of public dances, having sponsored several successful affairs at the beautiful Trianon Ballroom on Euclid Avenue here, said to be the most beautiful ballroom in the country. [[image- black & white Profile photograph of a smiling woman]] [[caption]] VELMA MIDDLETON, vivacious singer and dancer, who entered the theatrical profession in St. Louis, Mo. Since then Velma has climbed by leaps and bounds. She is now featured at the Harlem Uproar House on Broadway in New York City. In private life Velma is Mrs. Averi Parrish. Here husband is the pianist with Erskine Hawkins Band[[/caption]] Willis Sponsored dances there recently featuring Fletcher Handerson,Andy Kirk and Noble Sissle and has other engagements lined up. The Cocoanut Grove, Cleveland's third race attempt to open a nightery has closed its doors for good. As usual the owners themselves are the cause...when two or more men go into business together, why is it that they can't get along? The rage in small private clubs here are the Bee Club and the A.V. Club, what they mean by A.V. I don't know...In the line of taverns we have Bessie's. the Little Tavern and the Red Lantern... The latter in the heart of the toughest district in town is mobbed over the weekend by the best people in town. Rivalling Len Reed's Chicken Shack in Detroit, is the Local Log Cabin where you can get the finest chicken anywhere in the country... Al Williams, one of the places big shots told me just before I sat down to write this drivel that the Cabin has taken over a chicken farm where they will raise only milk-fed chickens for the Log Cabin... When in Cleveland, visit the Log Cabin. The prince of entertainers is playing Cleveland in the form of Emory Evans, the Truckin'est Man in Town... Emory and Leonard Reed have never been surpassed in this man's town when it comes to dressing and popularity... Emory's room here looks like a page out of Esquire... With the news that Cab Calloway will do a week in this man's town the week of May 21 I will pause for reflection until next month... Glad to have been able to get back to the "Show-Down" ... Tadiah.
