Deep Deuce in Oklahoma City

“Deep Deuce” started like hundreds of other Black communities across the nation in the early 20th century: because of segregation. In the early 20th century, Black people were denied the opportunity to purchase houses, run businesses, or even patronize establishments in the white parts of town, so they created their own centers of commerce. 

One such place was a Black neighborhood north of Bricktown in downtown Oklahoma City. Churches, businesses and cultural institutions quickly gave the neighborhood its character; soon, live music and art would give the neighborhood its heart. By the 1920s, this became “Deep Deuce.”

While we remember it today as “Deep Deuce,” most knew it in its heyday as “Deep Second.” Whatever its name, there is no denying the neighborhood was thriving.

During the day, the neighborhood was a business district with doctors’ and lawyers’ offices, beauty parlors, barbershops, clothing retailers, a drugstore, hardware store, and a groundbreaking newspaper, the Black Dispatch. The area was also home to luminaries in the Black business community, including: Sydney Lyons of the East Indian Toilet Goods Mfg. Co., the second-largest African American hair product company in the world; Dr. William Lewis Haywood, founder of Oklahoma City’s first African American hospital; Dr. Wyatt H. Slaughter, architect, builder, entrepreneur, and the first Black doctor to live in Oklahoma; and Roscoe Dunjee, Civil Rights pioneer and editor of the Black Dispatch.

While the “Deep Deuce” was bustling during the day, the neighborhood shined at night. “Deep Deuce” housed nightclubs, dance halls, supper clubs, and live music venues, including hot spots like Slaughter’s Hall, Ruby’s Grill, and the most famous of all, the Aldridge Theater. Since it first opened its doors in 1919, the Aldridge Theater welcomed big bands, vaudeville acts, and touring companies. Through the 1920s and 1930s, “Deep Deuce” became one of the hottest jazz and blues destinations in the region. Iconic names such as Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, and Duke Ellington made stops in the “Deep Deuce.” 

“Deep Deuce” not only welcomed world-famous talent, it helped create it. “Deep Deuce” produced homegrown local music talent that gained national acclaim, including Jimmy Rushing, Charlie Chrisitan, and The Blue Devils, as well as the internationally renowned, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist of Invisible Man and Juneteenth, Ralph Ellison.

This place, “Deep Deuce,” became a cauldron for cultivating creativity, regularly booming with cultural activities like parades, street dances, breakfast dances, New Orleans-style funerals, and even a Thursday night tradition called “Maids Night Out.” Every Thursday night, spectators and participants would come together for a street fashion show. In “Deep Deuce,” something was happening all the time.

Roscoe Dunjee was editor of the “Deep Deuce”-headquartered Black Dispatch newspaper, where he tackled hot-button issues of the day with courage in his editorials. However, Dunjee’s influence extended far beyond his subscriber base. 

A passionate booster of Black economic advancement and fraternal societies, Dunjee was president of the National Negro Business League in Oklahoma City, the “Black Chamber of Commerce” founded by Booker T. Washington in 1900, as well as a member of the Knights of Phythias. Dunjee was also a member of the NAACP’s national board of directors, and served for sixteen years as President of the Oklahoma State branch, the nation’s first state conference of NAACP branches. During Dunjee’s tenure, the organization took on several court cases dealing with segregation in Oklahoma.

From the pages of his paper, to courtrooms, to the halls of legislatures, Dunjee was a passionate champion for Civil Rights both statewide and nationally. And he called The “Deep Deuce” home.