City honors nightclub where Ray Charles sang during Jim Crow

CLEMSON, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina city is planning to put up a historical marker to commemorate a nightclub that hosted Black musicians and patrons in the segregated South. The city of Clemson purchased the marker in honor of the Littlejohn Grill. The venue opened after World War II and stayed open until the 1960s, hosting numerous blues, jazz and rock ’n’ roll entertainers. They included James Brown, Harry Belafonte, and Ray Charles. The Greenville News reports that the Littlejohn Grill was a part of the “Chitlin Circuit,” a string of venues where Black entertainers could perform during an era when Southern Jim Crow laws denied them access to whites-only stages.