It wouldn’t be the first time The Enterprise Center’s West Philadelphia headquarters has been a site where Black folks from the area have broken barriers into spaces previously reserved for white folks.
As told in Matthew Delmont’s “The Nicest Kids in Town,” when the building became the original filming studio for American Bandstand in 1952, Black teens were allowed in to dance on camera alongside white teens. But after two years on the air, producers adopted admissions practices that kept the Black teens out, even though the show continued to feature popular Black performers and drew Black and white audiences nationwide. In 1957, a group of Black teens showed up at a taping but for over an hour, producers only let in white teens. After a reporter on the scene from Philly’s Black newspaper, The Philadelphia Tribune, started asking questions, the Black teens were finally able to gain admission.
Inside, it was all hunky-dory — the teens all knew each other from their neighborhoods. But contradicting claims made by legendary American Bandstand Host Dick Clark, Delmont found evidence that aside from a few rare moments like that one, the show’s white-only admissions practices remained in place until production moved to Los Angeles in 1964.
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