Inside the ‘Chitlin Circuit,’ a Jim Crow-Era Safe Space for Black Performers

‘Sometimes you play for the chitlins, that’s what you would get,’ said Bobby Rush, a blues musician and self-proclaimed ‘King of the Chitlin Circuit,’ in a 2021 interview for the Nashville Tennessean. ‘We played so well in Argo, Illinois, not Chicago, a suburb of Chicago, the guy [gave] us two plates of chitlins and four hamburgers.’
Rush was describing his experience on the informal network of Black-centered entertainment venues brilliantly nicknamed ‘The Chitlin Circuit.’ Chitlins, short for ‘chitterlings,’ are fried or stewed animal intestines, usually from hogs.