The night Nat King Cole was beaten on a Birmingham stage

Updated Feb 19, 2020; Posted Jan 11, 2018

By Jeremy Gray | jgray@al.com


Jeremy Gray | jgray@al.com

In his mind, it should have been the next best thing to a hometown show. ... Nat King Cole, the Montgomery native whose velvet voice propelled him to stardom with hits like "Unforgettable" and "Mona Lisa" and in a few months would launch his own NBC variety show (the first hosted by a black man), was taking the stage in Birmingham on April 10, 1956. ... But, this wasn't just any stage and the Magic City had more in store for Cole than the 37-year-old music legend ever expected.

Birmingham's Municipal Auditorium, today known as Boutwell Auditorium, through the decades has hosted everyone from B.B. King to the Grateful Dead to Prince and Nirvana. The city's homeless huddle there now on the coldest nights. ... The aging auditorium has hosted more than its fair share of historic political events as well.

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt stared down Bull Connor there, taking a seat in an aisle rather than choosing which race to sit with during the 1938 Southern Conference for Human Welfare. Ten years later, Strom Thurmond led 6,000 Southern Democrats -- soon to be known as Dixiecrats -- who fled the Philadelphia national convention and gathered in the sweltering Birmingham auditorium to launch a new political movement aimed at maintaining segregation across the South. The photo above shows the July 1948 Dixiecrat convention.

On this same stage, eight years later, Cole expected to sing a few tunes with his all-white backing band, a few early shows for white audiences and a late night show for a black audience. ... It was not to be.

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