The Patrons
The Roxy Theatre opened its doors sometime in the early 1950s and played host to movies and shows for nearly a decade. At that time, the theater was just one of many thriving businesses in the part of town known as the Tybee community. We were able to track down some former Roxy patrons about what it was like to see a show there.
Leroy Thomas Sr.
Leroy Thomas Sr., 71, grew up just three blocks away from the Roxy Theatre. It was part of the Tybee neighborhood — the oldest black community in the area — and was full of black-owned businesses and homes, he said.
Thomas went to the theater when he was 10 years old and saw his first major motion picture, The Ten Commandments (1956). Thomas recalls watching Otis Redding perform at the weekly “Teenage Party” talent shows at the Roxy until it was moved to the Douglass Theatre. After the move Redding would go on to win the competition 15 times in a row until they banned him from performing. Thomas said that the experience of going to the Roxy was pure entertainment and that he was motivated to do his chores under the threat of not being able to go to the movies.
Produced by Jackson Dillard
Nathaniel Person
Nathaniel Person, a custodian at Mercer, attended the Roxy Theatre as a young teenager. Person says that he was about 13 or 14 when he visited the Roxy. He would go with friends to the theater or sometimes take his girlfriend at the time on dates there.
Person was born in Pleasant Hill on what is now called Mt Pleasant Church Road, and moved to Tindall Heights in 1941. Person would sometimes walk from Tindall Heights to the theater. He said it was a nice place to go on the weekends. They ran soap operas at the theater, so he would attend every Saturday to see the new episode. His favorite movie that he saw at the Roxy was No Way Out (1950).
Produced by Emanuela Rendini
Ruth Hill
Ruth Hill was just entering her teenage years when the Roxy opened in the 1950’s. At that time, Hill was in high school at Kelley Hudson High School on Macon’s south side. Hill remembers an environment where blacks could come enjoy movies and other entertainment in their own theater space.
“We only had the Douglass,” she said. “They built the Roxy so we would have another (theater). It was in the neighborhood and that’s where the practically all of us young folks would meet up.”
.Hill remembers memorable performances from well-known artists who came to visit like Otis Redding and Little Richard Penniman.
Produced by Avery Braxton
Alice Bailey
Alice Bailey, who went on to be involved in the Macon music scene as a DJ, was a young teen when the Roxy was in its heyday. She didn’t live in the Tybee community where the Roxy operated but knows a lot of the area’s history.
“Every kind of business you needed was in Tybee, run by black people. There were dance halls, grocery stores, shoe shops, (a) pressing club,” she said.
Bailey explained that the Roxy was built to provide entertainment to those people living in the Tybee community.
“So I can tell you that it was a very fascinating experience to be in there, because it was built like … a big tube, or like a bullet. It always came to me that way, in my mind, a bullet or this big tube — — and I didn’t like the acoustics in it,” she recalled. “I remember thinking that something was happening with the sound that wasn’t like the Douglass. And it certainly wasn’t like the movies I went to in Philadelphia every summer, when we would go there for to visit my mother’s family … I was looking for plush. It wasn’t that. But then, at that age, plush is different for everybody.”
She recalls her first and only experience with the Roxy Theatre as a teenager, on a first date.
“So, when this young man asked me to go to the movie, my mother identified going to the Roxy,” she recalled. “He wasn’t going to be able to take me all the way downtown. That was a long way, then. She had to take me to the movies, we had to meet him there, and then he could drive me home. She figured I’d be safe, 12–13 blocks in his car. And it was arranged through my father and his grandmother that he would take me to the movies and he’d bring me right back home — directly home. And everybody knew [movie] times then, you know. Movie was over at 7:26? By quarter of 8, you should be on the porch! You know? And that was my only experience with the Roxy. That little date.”
Produced by Parker Van Riper
Patricia Harris
Patricia Harris grew up on the south side of Macon and was a teen at the time that the Roxy opened.
“I remember just going on Saturday after we had to do our cleaning at home — that one room you had to clean up — and I would be cleaning like I don’t know what to go to the Roxy on Saturday, because my grandma wouldn’t let you leave home til’ you got through cleaning up and wash,” she said. The place was booming with excitement. Everyone who loved entertainment and was around went to the theatre, including Harris.
She recalled a company that made flour put small coins in the bags and you could use those for free admission on Saturdays.
“I guess they had a deal with the flour company,” she said.
Produced by Ireal James
Helen Smith
Helen P. Smith went to Ballard Hudson Junior High School when the Roxy Theatre opened.
“Only time I really could go was on Saturday cause’ I wasn’t allowed to go on Sunday, but I would like to see Roxy artists … and all of them bad boys you know,” she said. “I really liked the cowboy movie, even today I like the old Western movies, we had a good time — and we’d all meet, like she said, we would all meet together, and that was our dating time.”
She also recalled using coins from a flour company to see movies.
“I remember being anxious for the flour to run out so I could search for the (coin) and go to the theater,” she said.
Smith said she still thinks about the old theater that later became a church.
“I remember the Roxy so well and every now and then I’ll pass over down through that way to see some of the areas that might be still standing there, but it’s still hanging on — a big old … building on Hazel Street,” she said.
Produced by Ireal James
