Don Theater
One of two segregated theaters in Natchitoches, the Don Theater required African Americans to enter through a side door and use a side stair to reach assigned seating in the balcony, as seen in the interior photograph below. Refreshments had to be purchased outside of the theater instead of at the concession stand inside. The theater closed its doors in the 1980s when the Parkway Theatre was built on Keyser Avenue.
At the Cane Theater on Second Street, we couldn’t go inside to buy candy or popcorn; we had to stand at the door on the outside and tell people what you wanted and they would come and bring it to you and take your money. We had to go upstairs to the movie house to see the movie, because the Whites sat down at the bottom – we’d sit upstairs. That was at both movies, the Don Theater and the Cane Theater.
Don Sepulvado, 1974 [exterior shot]
Curtis Guillet Collection, #A-270, n.d., CHRC [interior shot]