Vanishing Black Bars & Lounges: The Afterlife

A multimedia project on inheritance, aging, and the future of Black cultural institutions across the United States

A documentary series tracing Black bars as multi-generational institutions, following older Black women who have stewarded these spaces for decades as they face closure, succession, and transformation.

SECTION 1 — CORE STRUCTURE

Three Cities. Three Stages of Institutional Life.

This project follows Black neighborhood bars as they move through cycles of survival, loss, and continuity across generations.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Roberta “Ms. Bert” Brassell (83)
Black Beauty Bar & Grill (founded 1975)

Reopened after an extended closure with the help of her children and grandson. The bar remains a multi-generational family-run institution navigating redevelopment pressures and neighborhood change.

Columbus, Ohio

Gail Barnett
The Canabar (family stewardship since 1962)

Continues her family’s long-term stewardship of a neighborhood institution that has served as a consistent cultural anchor across decades of neighborhood change.

New Orleans

Carolyn Monnie Cushenberry (74)
First & Last Stop (operated 20+ years)

Recently lost the bar after decades of stewardship in a building that had housed Black bars for roughly 75 years. Its closure reflects broader pressures of ownership instability, redevelopment, and succession gaps.

SECTION 2 — SYSTEMIC FRAME

Stewardship, not disappearance

Across cities, Black neighborhood bars are not only disappearing—they are moving through a transitional phase in which cultural stewardship is distributed unevenly across aging founders, legacy male proprietors, and a growing number of younger professionals entering preservation through business, legal, and development pathways.

Despite shared pressures—rising costs, redevelopment, shrinking customer bases, and uncertain succession—these operators often remain isolated from one another, with little formal infrastructure for knowledge transfer or collective survival.