This Just In - Chuck Berry’s Cadillac
Chuck Berry’s Ride
- By Aviva Shen
- Smithsonian magazine, April 2012, Subscribe
Berry’s 1973 Cadillac Eldorado (NMAAHC, SI)
When Chuck Berry was a boy, the Fox Theatre in St. Louis refused to admit him because of his race. On his 60th birthday, in 1986, he drove his 1973 Cadillac Eldorado onto the same stage for the filming of Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll. Now he has donated the car to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Project historian Kevin Strait says Berry personifies the many ways in which “African-American music has helped to narrate the quintessentially American ideals of freedom, self-determination, creativity and innovation.” Determination, indeed: Berry, 85, still performs at a club near his Wentzville, Missouri, home.
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