On April 23, 1940, 16-year-old Alice Kastor and her friends had tickets to see Walter Barnes and His Royal Creolians—a popular jazz orchestra from Chicago who were playing at the Black-owned Rhythm Night Club in their hometown of Natchez, Miss. The club, which was no more than a large wooden building encased in corrugated iron, sat at the center of her community on St. Catherine Street amid the confluence of churches, barbershops, saloons and funeral homes.
Like many other high-school students in the Black community, Alice was thrilled. She loved all kinds of music, especially jazz, and that Tuesday evening she and a group of friends headed to the club with youthful anticipation.
It was intermission when a young Alice Kastor (pictured) and her friends arrived to see Walter Barnes and His Royal Creolians perform at the Black-owned Rhythm Night Club in Natchez, Miss., 83 years ago. They decided to go to a sandwich shop and while there, they heard a man running down the street yelling “the Rhythm Club is on fire!” Photo courtesy Alice Kastor Campbell
It was intermission when Alice and her friends arrived, so they decided to go to a sandwich shop to get something to eat. It turned out to be a fateful decision. A short time later, they were jolted out of their seats when they heard a man running down the street yelling “the Rhythm Club is on fire!” She immediately headed in the direction of the club and got there just before firemen arrived.
The fire was put out within minutes. But it had just as swiftly taken more than 200 young Black lives, including many of her friends—some of her classmates from St. Francis Catholic school as well as students from Brumfield, the Black public high school. In the wee hours of the night and on the following day, she replayed the horror of what happened in her mind. Her family’s home, adjacent to the Rhythm Night Club, was so close that she saw dead bodies lying in the yard next to the club.
“I have nightmares about it,” she told