Charlie's Place
Charlie's Place
How did a Black man in 1940s Jim Crow South open a club where Black and white people danced together? Charlie’s Place was revolutionary, and that meant it was dangerous. In this 5-part series, host Rhym Guissé explores the unbelievable true story of Charlie Fitzgerald, a mysterious Black businessman whose nightclub became an unlikely site of integration in 1940s Myrtle Beach. Charlie broke do…Social links:
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Episode 5: All Costs
“You know, that incident was what many of us consider the ugliest black molar in our local history. It was just pure evil and ugly.” August 26th, 1950 was the night that changed Myrtle Beach. It changed Charlie and the impact reverberated throughout the south. Subscribe to Pushkin+ to binge the …
41:04
Episode 4: Mr. Nobody From Nowhere
“And in the minds of many, Charlie Fitzgerald's dance hall becomes the worst fears of the champions of white supremacy.” There’s much mystery surrounding Charlie Fitzgerald and who he was before Myrtle Beach. Before he was Charlie Fitzgerald he was Lucious Rucker. So who is Lucious Rucker? Subsc…
37:46
Episode 3: Power Cedes to Power
“He helped people. He loaned people. He wasn't to be trifled with” Charlie Fitzgerald built multiple businesses across Myrtle Beach – the hotel, the club, the cab company, the high-stakes poker game – and loaned money to white folks in town to bend the rules in his favor. How long would this last …
30:53Explicit
Episode 2: Sin City
“All the dancers wanted that black music. Why? Because it had a danceable backbeat.” Dance at Charlie’s Place wasn’t just dance; it captured the spirit of an era defined by both segregation and creativity. When white audiences arrived for the music, these moments sparked shifts that transformed M…
33:20
Episode 1: Whispering Pines
“Myrtle Beach was a good place, if you stay in your place, I’ll put it like that.” At the height of segregation, when everywhere else was divided. Black and white people danced together to the biggest R&B acts of the time at Charlie’s Place. How was this possible? And who was the mythic proprietor…
32:43
Introducing Charlie’s Place
Beloved. Notorious. Defiant. Folk hero. These are just a few ways to describe Charlie Fitzgerald, the entrepreneur who owned an integrated nightclub during Jim Crow in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. What happened in Myrtle Beach at Charlie’s Place would come to define a community and generations to …
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