Entry · catalog no. 1060
chitlin circuit
/ /ˈtʃɪt.lɪn ˈsɜːr.kɪt/ /CHIT-lin SUR-kit
noun · nationwide · 1930s
✓ Verified
1.
The network of Black-owned and Black-friendly theaters, clubs, and juke joints that booked Black performers when white venues would not — and the touring life built on it.
“Before anybody knew his name, he was doing six nights a week on the chitlin circuit.”
Origin & Attribution
Black America under Jim Crow, roughly the 1930s through the 1960s, named for chitterlings — the soul-food dish that stood in for the whole world these rooms belonged to. Its structure grew out of Sherman Dudley's Black theatrical company in 1911 and, after the white-run TOBA collapsed, the Ferguson Brothers Agency out of Indianapolis. James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor, and Jimi Hendrix all learned their craft on it. The circuit was not a lesser stage — it was the only stage, and it made most of the American music that followed.
1911
Sherman Dudley builds a Black theater chain
1930s-1960s
Circuit flourishes under Jim Crow
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The South
nationwide · 1930s
Spoken by
Black performers and audiences under Jim Crow
$CHITLIThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady96 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
55/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1930
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@nolakid
New Orleans, LA
@htxdri
Houston, TX
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Lou Rawls, quoted in the Oakland Tribune — newspaper · 1966
submitted
■
+ Cite a sourcePreston Lauterbach — The Chitlin' Circuit and the Road to Rock 'n' Roll — book · 2011
submitted
See also