[1] The show, Some American History, ran from February through April 1971 and featured works by Rivers and six Black artists that largely focused on slavery and violence against African-Americans.

[4] De Menil told Bradley following Some American History that he wanted to host an exhibition that allowed Black artists to represent themselves on their own terms.

Literary agent Ronald Hobbs wrote to de Menil following Some American History encouraging him to organize a show with local Black artists, arguing it would create a point of pride for community members.

Bradley enlisted employees from the Institute for the Arts along with a construction company to repair and renovate the theater for the exhibition, leaving several historical features unchanged and much of the disrepair on the outside still visible.

[3][1] Artists Sam Gilliam and Kenneth Noland, along with art critic Clement Greenberg, assisted Bradley with the organizing and installation of the show.

[2] The 18 artists included in the final show were Darby Bannard, Anthony Caro, Dan Christensen, Ed Clark, painter Frank Davis, Sam Gilliam, painter Robert Gordon, Richard Hunt, Virginia Jaramillo, Daniel LaRue Johnson, Al Loving, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Larry Poons, sculptor Michael Steiner, William T. Williams, and painter/sculptor James Wolfe, along with Bradley himself.

[3][2] The Houston Post reviewed the show and said it "demonstrated that there is a vast untapped reservoir of curiosity and human potential new experiences that is rarely piqued or reached by the conventional museum format."

Conversely, local resident Vivian Ayers was interviewed by the Houston Chronicle and claimed the abstract art shown was not relevant to or legible by the community: "Nobody I knew who went to the show was even able to describe what was there.

[6] The theater, along with several art galleries in New York and Los Angeles, hosted 50th anniversary retrospective exhibitions about The De Luxe Show in 2021.

While the show highlighted the historic nature of the original exhibition, curators and organizers also questioned the validity of Bradley and de Menil's assertion that the Fifth Ward did not already have cutting-edge contemporary artists.