Black Gail’s Domino Parlor 1968 Pillow

Deep Ellum is a neighborhood near downtown in East Dallas, Texas. The area was settled as a “freedmens’ town” by former slaves after the Civil War; its location on Elm Street, east of the railroad tracks, was too far from downtown Dallas to be desirable. The area was called Deep Elm or, as early residents pronounced it, “Deep Ellum.” As a predominately African American neighborhood, Deep Ellum hosted countless black owned businesses, including Black Gail’s Domino Parlor, where players paid a few pennies per hour to rent a table and gamble on games of dominoes.