Episode 82 Natchez Burnin’ The Rhythm Club Fire of 1940

Southern Mysteries Podcast

Shannon Ballard

True Crime, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 918 Ratings

🗓️ 1 March 2021

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Natchez Rhythm Club changed the city of Natchez on April 23rd 1940. 209 people died and more than 200 were injured including civic and cultural leaders. All of the victims of one of the deadliest fires in US history were Black. See photos and sources for this episode in the show notes at southernmysteries.com Support The ShowWant more Southern Mysteries? Hear the Southern Mysteries show archive and immediately access exclusive content when you become a patron of the show. Join now at patreon.com/southernmysteries ConnectWebsiteTwitterFacebook Music Theme Song “Dark & Troubled” by Panthernburn. Special thanks to Phillip St Ours for permission for use ***Additional Music: Somber Ballads and Long Road Ahead B by Kevin MacLeod. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Source: http://incompetech.com/. Pale Rider by Blues Mini Vandals; Burden Laid Down by The Westerlies; Fresh Fallen Snow by Chris Haugen; Lost Cowboy by Coyote Hearing. Licensed Under Creative Commons. Beginnings in Dust, Devouring the Whole by Ross Gentry. Courtesy Headway Recordings Asheville. The Natchez Burning by Howlin' Wolf. The Complete RPM & Chess Singles A's & B's 1951-62, Vol. 1 ℗ 2014 Acrobat Licensing Ltd. The Natchez Fire by Gene Gilmore. Originally issued on the 1940 single (Decca 7763) (78 RPM). “It’s Tight Like That” by Walter Barnes and His Royal Creolians. 1928.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	In 1956, Helen Wolf recorded the Natchez-Burnin, a memorial to the victims of a nightclub
0:07.7	tragedy in the 1940s.
0:10.1	Did you ever hear about the burning?
0:19.0	That happened, went down and lodging Mississippi town. On April 23rd, 1940, over 700 people crowded into the Rhythm Club in the Black Business District of St.
0:28.6	Catherine Street.
0:31.0	Just before midnight, a fire in the club entered over 200 people and
0:35.1	killed 2009. All of the victims were black. What happened that night in Natchez,
0:43.5	robbed a generation of promising leaders,
0:46.5	and it changed how we experience concerts.
0:51.5	Welcome to Southern Mysteries, exploring history and mysteries of the American South.
0:58.0	I'm your host, Shannon Ballard, and this is the story of one of the deadliest fires in US history, the Rhythm Club Fire.
1:07.0	Natchez Mississippi was established in 1716. It's one of the oldest towns along the Mississippi
1:17.4	River. The city center was built high on bluffs overlooking the Mississippi.
1:24.6	High atop a bluff, there's a bronze memorial plaque erected in the memory of those who perished
1:31.0	in the Rhythm Club Fire.
1:33.2	The monument was donated by the Natchez Social and Civic Club of Chicago.
1:40.6	The loss of life and injury sustained in the Rhythm Club Fire impacted the lives of folks from Chicago on down to New Orleans because of the power of music and a generation of leaders and leaders in the making who were in the
1:55.8	club that night and never made it home including band leader Walter Barnes.
2:02.3	Barnes was born including band leader, Walter Barnes.
2:04.4	Barnes was born in Mississippi in 1905,
2:07.7	who was part of a large family, had 14 siblings.
2:11.8	In 1922, his parents relocated the family to Chicago. This was a part of the great
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Shannon Ballard, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Shannon Ballard and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.