2024 Essays

Maria C. Downs

Lopez, Alyssa

Mrs. Maria C. Downs (née Godoy), variously referred to as owner, proprietor, and manager, opened the Lincoln Theatre in Harlem in 1909. The theater, a nickelodeon and vaudeville theater that openly catered to the neighborhood’s Black community, was the first of its kind in the city, which operated under de facto segregation. Downs sought Black patronage, booked Black performers, and did not segregate her customers. While it is unclear if she was born in the United States, Downs lived in New York City and self-identified as Cuban (Jackson 94). Secondary sources, however, are conflicted on her race: Bernard L. Peterson’s The African American Theatre Directory notes that she was “white or nonblack” (125), while Eric Ledell Smith’s African American Theater Buildings describes her as “African American” (146). Primary sources, including the trade press and Black newspapers, either left off a descriptor or labeled her as white. Regardless of her identity, Downs quickly gained a reputation as a “charming, genial, and most courteous” proprietor (“Owner of New Lincoln Theatre on European Trip”), whose theater became “a part of the life of the colored people of Harlem” (“At the Nation’s Metropolis”).