In the first half of the 20th century, when Harrisburg was a hotspot for jazz, a local hotel became a haven for Black icons like Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong, who sought a place to stay after shows and found few options due to segregation.
Now, two Harrisburg theater groups have a new play telling the history of the Jackson Rooming House. The production shares the hotel’s fascinating story and preserves its memory in the aftermath of the building's recent demolition.
The Jackson Rooming House: Music’s Resting Place is co-presented by Harrisburg’s Gamut Theatre Group and the Sankofa African American Theatre Company. The play tells the story of rooming house founder German Jackson — the son of slaves who became one of the city’s most prosperous Black entrepreneurs — and his wife Betty. They opened their hotel in 1925 to accommodate Black travelers.
The hotel would be featured in the Green Book, a guide published between 1936 and 1966 to help Black patrons find welcoming restaurants, gas stations, department stores, and other businesses.
The play, which runs through Feb. 25 at Gamut Theatre, tells the rooming house’s story with songs spanning the musical styles of the 1920s through the 1960s.
The fictionalized account follows a group of teens stumbling inside the Jackson House, where they meet up with two people, Sun and Shine, who visit once a year to get in touch with the spirits of famous musicians who once lodged there.
“It is an intro to the richness we have locally and how Harrisburg was a destination,” Sankofa’s founding artistic director, Sharia Benn, told PA Local. “It was such a rich and vibrant entertainment, economic, and education center for decades. I want the people to know those stories and understand that.”
PA Local previously highlighted Benn’s play about Harrisburg’s Old 8th Ward, the neighborhood the state Capitol destroyed. It was the most diverse neighborhood in the city, comprising 20 blocks and thousands of residents at the turn of the century. By the early 1900s, it was gone, razed to make way for a grander Capitol complex.
Benn said she found out about the Jackson House from a gig with the Pennsylvania Past Players, a group that performs historical Pennsylvania stories.
But digging through the archives for information on the place proved difficult. Benn said she had to piece together information from oral stories passed down through generations, due to a lack of documentation. She even traveled to Philadelphia and Baltimore to find historical Black newspaper clippings that may contain relevant stories.
“Finding a photo of the Jackson House when it isn't boarded up — I haven't been able to find photos from that time. Even looking through newspaper clippings, I have to remember that the news in the ‘20s was very carefully curated and our stories weren't a priority,” Benn said.
Preserving the information she was able to find became her priority.
“We got it recorded and memorialized so we could keep telling these stories,” she added.
Clark Nicholson, founding artistic director of Gamut Theatre, said he encouraged Benn to do a show about the Jackson House four years ago.
“When she did her show about the Eighth Ward, I told her, ‘You should do the Jackson House,’” he recalled.
Nicholson applied his music history expertise to the show, which explores the evolution of Black song styles and traditions. He said the audience will get to hear jazz, blues, big band, gospel, and more throughout the play. Some of the featured songs include Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene,” and Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.” Watch snippets here.
The show extends the memory of the Jackson House, which lost its cachet as time went on. Ownership of the building switched several times before German Jackson died in 1998.
Later, the building was demolished in 2021 for safety reasons, following a partial collapse.
Nicholson said that context underscores the importance of the show: “We wanted to write about it since it was erased physically, and we didn’t want people to forget about it.”
—Tanisha Thomas, newsletter writer / reporter | 
