There was a wide acceptance of Black entertainers by white American audiences during the Jim Crow era. At the end of the Great Depression, Clemson students expected the CDA (Central Dance Association) to bring top-name entertainers, Black and white - to campus for social events. When the CDA had booked Jimmie Lunceford, in 1939, Tom Stanley, the organization's business manager, in a letter to Harold F. Oxley, Lunceford's manager, explained how racism in the South affected his ability to book Black bands to play at Clemson.
The CDA provided entertainment not only for Clemson students but for the local white community as well. Some white musicians performed at venues in the city of Clemson, a few of the CDA's former members recall. However, many Black musicians played on the Chitlin' Circuit at Littlejohn Grill. Littlejohn’s Grill is where Black musicians including James Brown, Count Basie, and the Supremes performed and where travelers could find safe accommodations during the Jim Crow era. Some musicians like Harry Belafonte refused to perform at Clemson during the 1950's when the college was segregated, choosing rather to play at Littlejohn’s Grill. Although Clemson administrators allowed students to book Black musicians to perform at social events on campus and hired Blacks as farm hands, cooks, domestics as well as for other service-oriented or manual labor jobs, they would not admit Black students or hire Black faculty.
