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[[image - Pigmeat Markham]]

[[image - Timmie Rogers]]

[[image - Dusty Fletcher (Open the Door Richard)]]

[[image - Paterson and Jackson (Ton of Fun)]]

THEY PLAYED THE HOWARD

TOBA stood for tough on Black artists and was the house phrase of early Negro pioneers in Vaudeville and show business at the turn of the century.

TOBA was the segregated circuit of theatres operated by white promoters and owners for Negro
patronage in the Negro neighborhoods of New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Richmond, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Texas.

The early Negro artists who worked the circuit came from old Carnival, Minstrel, and tent shows performed in run down Negro concert halls and theatres. These pioneering souls accepted the vicissitudes of working the circuits because the bookings on them assured 6 to 9 months of steady work per year in the circuit theatres. And God bless them.

The owners in New York, Philadelphia and Washington advertised a three hour bill consisting of a main motion picture of a "B" film, a newsreel and a comedy short before the stage bill. If there were crowds, the front part of the bill was often suspended and the stage presentation went on, spaced by the showing of a short film or newsreel which allowed the stage bands enough time to prepare the sets for the stage performances.

The old TOBA circuits operated until a new era in entertainment called television came into being. Television needed the performers and utilized their talents and paid them better. The artists, were only called upon to present one show a week and were paid extremelywell. The black performers went for the new medium to these "gigs" when they were able to and this started the death knell of the TOBA circuit.

However, a Black performer named Bert Williams, a light skinned Jamaican broke

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