by Don Wilding
Owen, who grew up in Memphis and studied architecture at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, had fond memories of Big Bob. To get to Atlanta from Memphis, Owen traveled through Decatur and would stop and eat at Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q. By this time, Gibson had a full-service restaurant. Chris explains, “My father remembered seeing Big Bob behind the counter handing out bubblegum to the kids and putting on a big show.” Many years later, Chris met Big Bob’s great-granddaughter Amy McLemore.151
From 1986 to 1990, Chris studied marketing and finance at the University of North Alabama, where he met Amy. On September 1, 1990, Amy and Chris married, which brought Chris into the family business. Lilly says, “I was very fortunate. When I got into the barbecue business, I started with what I thought was the best barbecue. Big Bob Gibson’s Bar-B-Q already had a great history and a fantastic reputation in this area.” Lilly adds, “I think one of the best things I have done is take that reputation and let everybody know about it. Now, Big Bob Gibson’s Bar-B-Q is known around the world.” Lilly appreciates the restaurant’s global recognition. “When you look at the license plates, you see so many different license plates from outside of Alabama. These are people who have come to eat here.”152 Lilly has helped spread the reputation of Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q through his team’s success at barbecue competitions.153
The Competition Scene
After joining the restaurant, Lilly has helped Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q achieve international fame by leading his crew to victory at numerous international barbecue competitions. Barbecue competitions come in many different formats. They all have rules concerning team composition, fuel source, the use of electronics and recipe restrictions. In Kansas City Barbeque Society competitions, teams submit samples to judges in four categories: chicken, pork ribs, pork and beef brisket.154
For more than forty years, the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest has attracted the best competitors from around the world. At Memphis in May, Lilly has led the Big Bob Gibson team to numerous titles. They have won the grand championship at this famous competition four times: 2000, 2003, 2011 and 2014. In addition to these grand championship titles, they have also won eight times in the pork shoulder category: 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2011 and 2014.155
Due to competition success, Lilly has changed some of the recipes at Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q. “We have used the competitions as marketing research for our restaurant,” explained Lilly. Before the competition scene, they only used salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper. Now, they have unique dry rubs for each of their meats. Lilly explains, “All of those recipes were born through competition.” They do not change the recipe at the restaurant solely because of competition success. Lilly tests these recipes with loyal customers. He explained, “We have a lot of regular customers who have eaten here their entire lives.” He added, “We wanted their blessing before we rolled it out in the restaurant.”156
In 2000, Don McLemore, Chris Lilly and the rest of the Big Bob Gibson crew first won grand champion at Memphis in May International Festival. Chris Lilly.
They have also added a new sauce because of its success at barbecue competitions. Big Bob Gibson’s Bar-B-Q still offers the original white sauce recipe crafted by Big Bob. For years, they also had a traditional sweet red barbecue sauce. They bought it on the market and bottled it. “I never liked it; Don never liked it,” explained Lilly. When they started doing competitions, they wanted to formulate their own sauce. Don and Chris exchanged recipes and ideas over and over again. According to Lilly, “We traded it back and forth for a year and half.” In 1997, their wives had grown tired of the guys messing up the kitchens at home, and McLemore and Lilly decided to finish the recipe. They mixed their two best recipes, entered it into the sauce contest at Memphis in May and won. Now, they serve the sauce in their restaurant.
The Future
Chris and Amy now have three children: Jacob, Andrew and Caroline. The two boys have already started in the family business. Jacob and Andrew both graduated from the University of Alabama, and they help their father run Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q. After working for a year elsewhere, Jacob returned to Decatur and started working at the restaurant’s location on Sixth Avenue. Andrew returned to Decatur immediately and works at the Danville Road location. “I started them where I started: in the pit room. You have to learn the pit room and how to cook everything before you can learn the rest of the restaurant,” explained Lilly.157
Jacob Lilly, like his father before him, learns to master the pit before taking on any other responsibilities. Jacob, who graduated from the University of Alabama, represents the fifth generation of the family to work at Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q. Author’s collection.
The team at Big Bob Gibson expresses enormous respect for barbecue restaurateurs in the state of Alabama. “I have a lot of respect for the familyowned restaurants who have been doing it decade after decade and pass the traditions down,” explained Lilly.158
Chris Lilly wants Alabama barbecue to become recognized for its barbecue success. He explains, “Often, I think Alabama has been overlooked. People shoehorn barbecue into four regions: Kansas City, Carolina, Memphis, and Texas.…I think we’ve helped push Alabama barbecue to the forefront.”159
CHAPTER 5
Dreams and Opportunities
Black Barbecue Entrepreneurs in the Civil Rights Era, 1940–1970
In the mid-twentieth century, African Americans had limited opportunities available to them in the United States, especially in the Jim Crow South. They suffered from discrimination in hiring practices and earned lower wages for their work than their white counterparts. They tended to work the lowest-paid and most grueling jobs, often under the supervision of white employers and overseers. They rarely had union protection. When businesses cut costs, they often fired black workers first.160
In the food preparation industry, African Americans rarely fared much better. During enslavement, African Americans had done a large part of the cooking for white slaveholders. After emancipation, black women often found work in domestic service and continued to prepare food for white families. In the twentieth century, African Americans cooked for white customers in white-owned restaurants that they themselves could not visit as dining guests because of segregation laws.161
As consumers, African Americans did not have equal access to restaurants in the Jim Crow South. Due to their exclusion from these public spaces, African Americans often made restaurants the focus of their civil rights work. Most famously, they used sit-ins at southern lunch counters, where black activists endured verbal and physical assault and humiliation in pursuit of their rights. They perceived access to restaurants and diners, just like the voting booths, as a right of citizenship.162
In the segregated South, African Americans made spaces for themselves where they could cook for and associate with one another. In restaurants, taverns and juke joints, and other black-owned spaces, African Americans enjoyed a measure of freedom unavailable to them in other public spaces.163 Nonetheless, segregation meant that African Americans did not have the same mobility and choice as white Americans.
In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, which came under immediate scrutiny from white Alabama restaurateurs. After the passage of the law, the Birmingham Restaurant Association (BRA) challenged it. Congress based its authority to pass the law on its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce. The BRA used Ollie’s Barbecue as its test case. They wanted to prove that Congress had no right to legislate on the issue of segregation.
For decades, the restaurant’s owner, James “Ollie” McClung, had sold barbecue out of a makeshift stand on Green Springs Highway in Birmingham. In 1927, he opened a permanent restaurant. Traditionally, Ollie’s only served white customers in the dining room and made African Americans, who almost exclusively populated the neighborhood, take their orders home with them. Although McClung would not serve African Americans in the dining room, he employed a primarily black staff—about 66 percent of Oll
ie’s employees were African American.164
In December 1964, the Supreme Court upheld the Civil Rights Act by ruling in Katzenback v. McClung that discrimination at Ollie’s Bar-B-Q affected interstate commerce because it restricted the mobility and economic opportunity of African Americans. The Supreme Court also pointed out that McClung purchased almost half of his food from out-of-state suppliers while undoubtedly pursuing “a policy against serving Negroes.”165 After the decision, McClung grudgingly desegregated his restaurant and served five African Americans a few days after the decision. After desegregation, Ollie’s Barbecue continued to serve diners for more than thirty years. In 2001, the restaurant closed, but Alabamians can still find its sauce at local grocery stores.166
Before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, black men and women started their own restaurants using the skills they had developed over centuries of cooking food for white families. There, they tended to serve black and white customers. In addition to these jobs, some black women earned extra income by selling food as street vendors.167 Despite the difficult work, long hours and razor-thin margins associated with restaurant ownership, black families started some of Alabama’s most notable barbecue restaurants. By operating any type of restaurant, including a barbecue restaurant, black Alabamians pursued economic independence and financial security. After desegregation, black-owned barbecue restaurants continued to serve clients of all races.168
BRENDA’S BAR-B-QUE PIT
In the middle of World War II, James and Jereline Bethune opened the Siesta Club in Montgomery, Alabama. At first, they operated it as a nightclub that also sold food. Eventually, they changed it from a nightclub to a barbecue restaurant, which they named after one of their daughters.169
Since 1942, Brenda’s Bar-B-Que has remained in the Bethune family. In 1956, James passed away, but Jereline and her family continued to operate Brenda’s Bar-B-Que Pit for many decades. When Jereline passed away, her sons Milton and Larry took over the restaurant. In 2014, Milton died, and Larry assumed sole ownership. Currently, he employs many of his family members, including his daughter Donetta. As Larry works in the kitchen, Donetta performs a variety of tasks, including meal prep and customer service.170 As a family and restaurateurs, the Bethunes endured many struggles but continued to operate their little restaurant.
The Bethunes started their restaurant in the middle of World War II, a global event that provided fertile ground for the growth of the civil rights movement. During World War II, African Americans flocked to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and formed new organizations, such as the Congress for Racial Equality. Inspired by the Double V campaign, which referred to victory on behalf of democracy at home and abroad, African Americans launched a movement for civil rights that continued for twenty years and beyond. Having fought and died for democracy in Europe, African Americans increasingly demanded protection of their political and civil rights at home.
The Bethune family has played an active role in the work for civil rights. According to Larry Bethune in an interview with food columnist Jim Shahin, “My mother and my sister and my auntie would help the NAACP.” They used their restaurant’s printer to create flyers about upcoming NAACP meetings. Their restaurant also offered a measure of security because of a fence that helped them hide their civil rights work from the Ku Klux Klan.171
In the 1940s through 1960s and beyond, the Bethune family endured many hardships, often on account of their race. According to Donetta Bethune, her grandmother overcame many obstacles as a black female barbecue restaurateur. She told interviewer Matt Omarkus, “There was a lot of discrimination, especially with inspections.” Despite these obstacles, Jereline successfully managed the restaurant. When Jereline faced a difficult inspection report, Donetta explained, “she would do everything that was asked and then she would come in and be asked to do something else.”172 As times have changed, the Bethunes have remained committed to their little restaurant.
Since 1942, Brenda’s Bar-B-Que Pit, opened by Larry James and Jereline Bethune, has offered take-out barbecue to hungry customers in Montgomery. Now, Larry Bethune owns and manages the restaurant, which also employs his daughter, Donetta Bethune. Author’s collection.
Brenda’s Bar-B-Que Pit consists simply of an ordering window and small kitchen. It has no dine-in space, so customers must take their orders with them. It sits among a plethora of empty and run-down buildings. Despite the economic circumstances of the neighborhood, Brenda’s Bar-B-Que Pit continues to thrive. “We’ve had tremendous support from the community,” Donetta boasted.173
In recent years, Montgomery has started to turn a corner with economic development in downtown and eastern neighborhoods, but the western part of the city, where Brenda’s continues to operate, has not necessarily seen these improvements. “It has been primarily west Montgomery that has supported us,” said Donetta. However, Brenda’s smoky chicken and juicy ribs inspire long-term loyalty in customers. “Even those who used to live here, they still come to eat here. And they pass the word along.”174 Brenda’s Bar-B-Que Pit’s success proves that Alabamians will seek out good food and come back for more.
Brenda’s Bar-B-Que Pit has become locally famous for its ribs, but it has success with most of its menu. James Bethune boasted, “People really seem to like our chopped pork, and our fried fish.”175 For side items, they have coleslaw, beans, potato salad and French fries. They also serve dessert, such as sweet potato pie. In addition to these conventional options, customers can also order pigs’ ears. During enslavement and later as sharecroppers, African Americans often made delicacies out of the cheapest cuts of meat, such as the ears, jowls, tongues, necks and hooves.176 At Brenda’s Bar-B-Que Pit, the pig’s ears come on white bread with mustard. Donetta claims they are the second-best seller on the menu, behind the ribs.177
Customers can find Brenda’s Bar-B-Que pit just a half mile down the road from City of St. Jude Catholic Church, a place with historic importance in the civil rights movement. On March 24, 1965, civil rights activists camped at St. Jude before finishing their march from Selma to Montgomery. On March 25, Martin Luther King and thousands of other activists completed their five-day, fifty-four-mile march with a demonstration at the Alabama capitol building.
LANNIE’S BAR-B-QUE SPOT
Before the Selma to Montgomery marchers set out from Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the Montgomery Highway, they enjoyed meals from Lannie’s Bar-B-Que Spot. At the time, Lannie’s Bar-B-Que Spot had not yet achieved fame across the state and region.178
In the 1940s, Will Travis Sr. and his wife, Lannie, opened the restaurant together on Minter Avenue. Prior to entering the barbecue business, Will worked at a baseball bat factory. “He always loved cooking,” said their granddaughter Caroline Hickman.179 According to Lannie’s daughter, Lulu Hatcher, “My mother used to get hogs and my stepfather would kill them. She would cook the meat on top of the stove, and then put it in the oven to bake and sell.”180
When the family moved into their current building, Will built a pit outside and barbecued the meat. “He knew exactly what he was doing,” said Lannie’s grandson Sam Hatcher. He cooked the meat on an open pit over hickory wood. They blended new and seasoned hickory to get the perfect flavor and heat.181
In 1946, Lannie and Will Travis started Lannie’s Bar-B-Q Spot, which has been in operation ever since and employed multiple generations of the family, among others. Author’s collection.
When Will and Lannie operated the restaurant, they only sold barbecue prepared on an open pit, but the younger generations have modernized the cooking techniques and expanded the menu. When the restaurant opened, Lannie’s sold every part of the pig, but they currently prepare only ribs and whole shoulders. They have abandoned the open pit for a gas rotisserie, which uses a smoke box to add flavor. In addition to barbecue, Lannie’s currently sells burgers, wings, fish sandwiches, shrimp, bologna and chicken nuggets. For
side items, they offer fried okra, fries, onion rings and corn nuggets.182
Although some things have changed, Lannie’s continues to honor the past in their food and work ethic. As they have always done, they still include a piece of crackling on their pork sandwiches. They also have their own tomato-based sauce. “The sauce really makes everything blend together,” explained Sam Hatcher.
More importantly, according to Sam Hatcher, the crew at Lannie’s Bar-B-Que Spot knows how to treat customers with respect. “The way we were raised, we know how to treat people.” Everyone leaves Lannie’s sated with good food and good company. Keeping the joint a family business means that employees represent not only the restaurant but also the family name, a responsibility they take seriously.183
Lannie’s Bar-B-Que Spot has remained in the family for more than seventy years. In 1972, Will passed away. As of 2016, Lulu Hatcher owns the restaurant, which employs mostly family, including Lulu’s daughter, Deborah. Generally, family members start working at the restaurant at a young age making sandwiches and wrapping them up for customers. Soon, they take on more responsibility. “By the age of twelve, I was running it,” explained Hickman. She explained that the family did not put pressure on her to join the family business but asserted that she never seriously considered anything else. “It was my choice,” she said.184
In its seven decades of operation, Lannie’s Bar-B-Que Spot has often been involved in the civil rights movement. When it first opened, the family served both black and white customers, even though African Americans could not visit white-operated restaurants. In an interview with Jim Shahin, Deborah explained the forms of harassment they endured. She said, “This was a mean, cruel place back in those days.” She recalled the Ku Klux Klan causing trouble in their neighborhood in Selma. “We would go in the house and turn the lights out.”185