Here's some of what I know is available on movie theaters for
African Americans.  Some of it talks a bit about black audiences.
 
Mary Carbine, "'The Finest Outside the Loop': Motion Picture
Exhibition in Chicago's Black Metropolis, 1905-1928," *Camera
Obscura* 23 (1990), 9-42.  [Great bibliography]
 
Doug Gomery, *Shared Pleasures* (Wisconsin 1993 [I think]).  [Chapter
on theaters for black Americans.]
 
Dan Streible, "The Harlem Theater: Black Film Exhibition in Austin,
Texas, 1920-1973," *Black American Cinema*, ed. Manthia Diawara
(Routledge 1993).
 
Greg Waller, *Mainstreet Amusements* (forget subtitle) (Smithsonian
1995 [I think, maybe 1994]).  [Has sections on black cinema-going in
Louisville]
 
Jacqueline Bobo has written about black women as interpreters of
American cinema;  bell hooks too.
James Baldwin's *The Devil Finds Work* talks about being a member of
a black film audience, as does Ellison's "The Shadow and the Act"
(the essay, not the whole book).  Nelson George's *Blackface* too.
Many essays and much fiction by black authors touch on these topics.
 
Happy hunting.
 
Arthur Knight
College of William & Mary
 
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