The Harlem club that banned all Black patrons except the performers

Flickr/kocojim

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The Cotton Club Opens in 1923

Owney Madden bought Club Deluxe in 1923 and renamed it the Cotton Club, which once sat at 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem.

Madden used the club to sell his illegal “Number One Beer.” Meanwhile, black performers entertained nightly under Prohibition’s shadow…

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