The Bel Air Theatre & Other Harford Movie Theatres

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For the first half of the twentieth century, movie theaters around Harford County were segregated by race, as was common throughout the South. There were three main movie theatres in Harford County: in Bel Air, Aberdeen, and Havre de Grace. Each of these operated in a segregated fashion that led to alienation and separation. And while there were other movements of greater prominence during the civil rights era, the ending of this theatre segregation was an important milestone given the cultural baggage and resentment that the situation created over many years.

By the 1950s, the Bel Air Theatre had become a hub of activity and entertainment for many young people throughout the Bel Air region. For people of color, Bel Air had a neighborhood hub for people of color around Aliceanna Street with restaurants and other places frequented by African Americans. Bel Air was mainly a segregated town. Formerly known as the Argonne, The Bel Air Theatre was two stories tall: often filled with people on weekend evenings. Community residents knew well that people of color could only sit in the balcony and were barred from entering the front door of the theatre. This was also the situation at other theatres in the county in Aberdeen and Havre de Grace. As such, black theatre-goers had no choice but to enter the Bel Air Theatre by going up an outside stairway accessed through an adjacent alley that went directly to the second floor of the theatre.

At one point, a young African American man named Bill Brown went to the movies in Bel Air after returning home as a wounded World War II veteran. There, he found out that he could only enter the theatre from the outside stairway and was also not allowed to purchase food or drinks at the concessions stand. The senior Brown told his son that he would not pay for such treatment, and that he would prefer that his son went to a movie theatre in Baltimore instead. Later, Bill Brown would become a state champion track and basketball coach at Central Consolidated School (segregated) and Bel Air High School (de-segregated). He also became a leader amongst African American teachers as an advocate for desegregation in the 1960s.

At some point before the passage of Maryland’s laptop (1963) and the federal Civil Rights Act (1964), the Harford movie theatres desegregated. While there are no documented protests outside the theatres, African American opposition to theatre segregation in greater Baltimore was a hallmark of the civil rights era. Not far from Harford, for example, Morgan State University and Johns Hopkins University students including from Harford, waged an eight-year battle to desegregate the Northwood Arundel Theatre that successfully culminated in early 1963. Along the way, hundreds of students were arrested and the local movement spread to local restaurants and shops. The Northwood protest has become a well-known hallmark of the civil rights movement in the Baltimore region.

In Harford County, memories of the Jim Crow era via theatre segregation were powerful even if the issue may not appear to be as substantial as school desegregation, for example. Yet, these memories along with others such as the pettiness of not allowing African American motorists from using water fountains at Route 40 gas stations are powerful indeed. However, the reactions of Bill Brown and others in applying these circumstances to their own life missions to end the system are most impactful.