- peanut gallery
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a) The upper balcony in a racially-segregated venues such as a theatre to which black patrons were restricted.<ref name="LtA">Listening to America: An Illustrated History of Words and Phrases from Our Lively and Splendid Past by Stuart Berg Flexner (1982; Simon and Schuster; ISBN 0671248952, 9780671248956), <span class="plainlinks">[ page 438]</span> Peanut gallery was in use in the 1880s, as a synonym for nigger gallery (1840s) or nigger heaven (1870s), the upper balcony where blacks sat, as in segregated theaters.</ref>
As early as the 1870s, most theaters allowed <span style="font-variant:small-caps">African Americans</span> to sit in designated areas, while the dress and parquet circles were reserved for whites. A few theaters did not allow blacks at all. In the early 1920s, black leaders protested these “peanut galleries” on the grounds that African Americans paid the same ticket price. A boycott was organized that resulted not only in the closing of the peanut galleries but also closing of the theaters to blacks altogether. It was not until the public accommodations drive in the early 1960s that all theaters were opened to blacks. On May 14, 1963, the Louisville <span style="font-variant:small-caps">Board of Aldermen</span> passed the public accommodations law that made discrimination in all public facilities illegal.
b) Any source of heckling, unwelcome commentary or criticism, especially from a know-it-all or of an inexpert nature.Enough already from the peanut gallery; if you think you can do a better job, go right ahead.
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