Westside Flamingo Club, Savannah — Incident Overview
Incident Overview · Date Conflict

Westside Flamingo Club Savannah

Local reporting states that a disturbance took place at the Flamingo after a booked group of performers did not appear. The strongest date in the supplied material is Thursday night, 20 July 1961, not the user-supplied 22/04/1961.

Stronger Date 20 July 1961
Venue 1031 W. Gwinnett St.
Injuries Not Verified
Fatalities Not Verified
Read Overview → View Sources
Scroll

Incident Overview

What Happened

Incident name: Westside Flamingo Club, Savannah.

Alternative venue names: Flamingo Club and Flamingo Recreation Center.

Location: Flamingo Recreation Center / Flamingo Club, 1031 West Gwinnett Street, Savannah, Chatham County, Georgia, United States.

Summary

Core Findings

Local reporting says a disturbance took place after a booked group of performers did not appear.

The Herald says the show included Chuck Berry, James Brown and the Famous Flames, Ben E. King, the Olympics, Sugar Pie DeSanto, and Nat Kendricks.

Ticket money was reportedly refunded. No confirmed injury or fatality total was found in the supplied research. Messy night, thin hard facts.

See Conflicts →

Quick View

Incident Highlights

0
Year
0
Venue Street Number
6
Named Acts in Herald
0
Verified Harm Figures

Chronology

Known Sequence

Acts Booked
A show was advertised or booked at the Flamingo with major performers including Chuck Berry, James Brown and the Famous Flames, Ben E. King, the Olympics, Sugar Pie DeSanto, and Nat Kendricks.
Performers Did Not Appear
Local reporting states the entertainers did not appear at the Flamingo as expected.
Disturbance at the Flamingo
The Herald refers to rioting or disturbance last Thursday night at the Flamingo Club when the entertainers failed to appear.
Refunds Issued
The management statement reported that ticket money was refunded.

Outcomes / Details

Operational Picture

🎤
Headline Acts
The line-up named in the local source included several major Black music performers of the period.
📍
Confirmed Venue
The venue is supported as the Flamingo Recreation Center / Club on West Gwinnett Street, with city directory support for 1031 W. Gwinnett St.
💸
Refunds
The strongest local newspaper account says ticket money was refunded after the entertainers did not appear.
⚠️
Thin Casualty Data
No confirmed injury or fatality count was found in the supplied research pass.
⚠️ Date Problem The uploaded source material does not support 22/04/1961. The stronger date in the research is Thursday night, 20 July 1961, from a contemporary local newspaper.

Disputed Details

Conflicting Information

The main clashes in the supplied material are the incident date and the scale of the disturbance.

Disputed Detail
Incident Date

The user-supplied date does not match the stronger source material.

History-of-Rock

Places the incident under 19 July 1961.

The Herald (Savannah)

Says the disturbance occurred on Thursday night, 20 July 1961.

20 July 1961 is the stronger date because it comes from a contemporary local newspaper source.

Disputed Detail
Crowd Size and Scale

One source goes big on numbers and damage; the stronger local source is more restrained.

History-of-Rock

Says a riot by 1,000 patrons lasted ten hours and that the club was virtually destroyed.

The Herald (Savannah)

Refers to “those hundreds of people” and calls the disturbance and violence regrettable, without matching the same numerical estimate or destruction claim.

The “1,000 patrons,” “ten hours,” and “virtually destroyed” claims were not independently confirmed by the strongest local source reviewed here.

Not Verified

Unverified Details

These points were not firmly established in the supplied research.

User Date
The user-supplied date 22/04/1961 was not supported by the reviewed sources.
Injuries
Any confirmed injury count.
Fatalities
Any confirmed fatality count.
Other Venue Claim
The claim that the performers were booked into a specific whites-only club across town was not independently verified from the stronger source.
Duration
The exact duration of ten hours.
Damage Level
The exact claim that the venue was virtually destroyed.

Source Material

References

The references below are taken from the uploaded source document.

01
History-of-Rock.com · News / Website
1961 Daily Events
Page dated 2026; entry refers to 1961 event
States that major acts were booked at the Westside Flamingo Club, failed to show, and that a riot followed. Also contains stronger claims on crowd size, duration, and damage that were not independently confirmed by the strongest local source.
Visit Source →
02
The Herald (Savannah) · Contemporary News
The Herald (Savannah, Georgia), July 29, 1961
29 July 1961
Reports that the Savannah NAACP condemned rioting at the Flamingo Club when a group of entertainers did not appear. Includes a management statement from the Flamingo Recreation Center on West Gwinnett Street and says ticket money was refunded.
Visit Source →
03
Digital Library of Georgia · Directory
Polk’s Savannah (Chatham County, GA) City Directory, 1961
1961
Directory listing identifying the Flamingo Recreation Center and Drive-In Restaurant at 1031 W. Gwinnett St. in Savannah.
Visit Source →
04
The Herald · Venue Context
The Herald (Savannah, Ga.), December 19, 1959, Image 11
19 December 1959
Advertisement identifying The Flamingo at 1031 West Gwinnett Street and naming ownership and management, useful for venue identification.
Visit Source →
05
The Herald · Venue Context
The Herald, January 16, 1960, Image 1
16 January 1960
Describes the Flamingo Recreation Center as a regular venue for large teen record hops, showing it was an active Black community entertainment venue before the 1961 disturbance.
Visit Source →
06
The Savannah Tribune · Venue Context
The Savannah Tribune, October 31, 1959, Page Six
31 October 1959
Notes an event scheduled at the Flamingo Recreation Center, adding support that the venue was an established local event space in Savannah.
Visit Source →
07
Documenting the American South · Oral History
Black nightclubs
Date not clearly stated
Oral-history excerpt recalling the Flamingo Club in Savannah as a nightclub associated with the city’s Black community. Useful for context, not hard chronology or casualty data.
Visit Source →
08
Auburn University · Academic
Prophet Without Honor: Hosea Williams and the Anomalies of the Civil Rights Movement in Savannah, Georgia
2015
Refers to the Flamingo Recreation Center on Gwinnett Street as a Savannah civil-rights movement meeting site in 1963, helping support the venue’s location and civic significance.
Visit Source →

A few things on the site

Have a look at what we have on the site. All the content is to assist and improve crowd safety at events and crowded placed.

Crowd Disasters
Crowd near miss incidents
Content upload
© 2026 Working With Crowds. Created for free using WordPress and Colibri

Translate »