Gaston, though, felt there needed to be a place where people could go in Birmingham for first-class accommodations, where they could experience what he did in New York and England. He wanted to create a motel that had exquisite lodging and fine dining for Negroes.
“That would be a real feather in our town’s cap,” Gaston wrote in Green Power.40 “As soon as I got home, I would make a little survey of hotel and motel facilities for colored people.”
ONE JOURNEY ENDS AND ANOTHER BEGINS
After a trip across Europe that included tours of Germany, Monaco, Holland, France and Italy, A.G. and Minnie returned to Birmingham. Minnie came back with a new, pricey five-piece silver service that was purchased from the vaults of England,41 and A.G. had arrived determined to make his idea for a motel for blacks a reality.
Gaston approached potential investors. They all thought it was a great idea, he said, but provided little more than a handshake and a smile. “There was much talk, which drifted into months, but no financial participation,” Gaston wrote.42 “I decided, as I had been forced to do in the past, to tackle this venture alone.”
A lot with a suitable building sat adjacent to his stately white Colonial Smith and Gaston funeral home on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Sixteenth Street North. Gaston acquired the structure, hired architects and financial advisors43 and sought to renovate it to the tune of $300,000.44
“I decided to construct on this land a really fine motel for the Negro citizens of Birmingham,” he wrote.45
According to Reverend Don Solomon, who worked and climbed the ranks of Gaston’s empire until the millionaire died in 1996, Gaston began his research by studying the Holiday Inn, even traveling to Memphis, where the chain was based at the time.
“Gaston tells the story of how he went to talk to the ownership to find out how to build him one,” Solomon said. “He built it according to what he learned. As I look back on it, [the Gaston Motel] was almost like the [Holiday Inn] motel, but he put the Gaston swing on it. He spent the big dollar. He went all the way.”
Gaston hired Homewood-based Steel City Construction Company to build the two-story brick facility. Stanley B. Echols, a fifty-year-old architect with Brooke B. Burnham, designed the building.
At the same time, in 1953, a young, fiery Baptist preacher with a heartbreaking smile took the helm of Bethel Baptist Church in Collegeville. Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth would become the general of the Birmingham civil rights movement, and his church, which “sat in the heart of the industrial Collegeville near iron furnaces and pipe foundries,” would be the headquarters.46 Shuttlesworth’s passion for freedom and unrelenting quest for it would cause his paths to cross many times with Gaston and his soon-to-be-built motel.
While construction of the facility continued, Gaston was eyeing a student who was set to graduate from Tuskegee University. He had met Ernest Gibson, a commercial dietetics major, while the young man worked at Tuskegee’s Dorothy Hall Guest House. The house was the place dignitaries came for important meetings, etc. In serving Gaston, he and Gibson became good friends.
Gaston wanted the young man to come to Birmingham to work for him at the motel after finishing school. Gibson refused, however, because he had been offered a position with Tuskegee as a junior instructor and had also been drafted to go to Korea. Gaston reluctantly accepted Gibson’s refusal but planned to approach him again in the future. George C. Small was hired as the manager to lead the staff.
While the finishing touches and preparation to open the motel’s doors were being made, Birmingham residents were celebrating a milestone of national importance. On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Brown v. Board of Education case, which declared segregated schools unconstitutional. Blacks rejoiced, but local whites rejected the order, and it would soon be apparent that the state and local government would opt to ignore the ruling rather than obey it.
Months later—after countless meetings, tireless days and nights and thousands of dollars spent—Gaston met his goal. The thirty-two-unit, fully air-conditioned motel opened just in time for the June 22–27, 1954 Baptist convention to converge on the city. The new building sat at 1508–10 Fifth Avenue North. Reservations were available by calling 4-4631.
Courtesy of Edna Gardner.
The Birmingham News described the motel as handsomely furnished with a beautiful patio and modern decorations. The drapes and bed coverings were custom-made, and exquisite furniture was purchased from Rhodes Carroll on 2020 Third Avenue North. All the glass was furnished by Uneeda Glass Co. located at 2030 Second Avenue South. Even white hotel operators described it as “one of the finest in the Southeast.”
“We just didn’t spare any costs in the motel,” Gaston told the News. “I don’t look at it as a business step—but a real adventure in providing something fine that I believe will be appreciated by our people. I am told there is nothing to compare with it anywhere in the world.”
Besides the décor, the place was equipped to serve the same mouthwatering food Gaston enjoyed every day. According to Solomon, Gaston brought in his personal chef, Mamie Ruth, to serve as the motel cook. She fashioned the menus and handled all the food, and “it was great,” he said.
When the Forty-ninth Session of the National Sunday School and Baptist Training Union Congress arrived in Birmingham, the motel was wall to wall with parishioners and bishops from Atlanta to Oklahoma, from Washington, D.C., to Dallas, Texas.
Ten thousand attendees assembled for the gathering, themed “The Church Fostering Personal Christian Faith in the Home.” Registration took place at the historic, all-black A.H. Parker High School, and various venues and churches throughout town served as the sites for the ninety-six courses and six seminars that were taught. Major speakers included Dr. J.H. Jackson, president of the four-million-member National Baptist Convention and pastor of Olivet Baptist Church in Chicago; Reverend Walter Phillip Offutt, church secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; and Dr. W.H. Jernagin, celebrated civil rights crusader and president of the congress.
Chairman of the city commission James W. Morgan, Birmingham City Schools superintendent Dr. L. Frazer Banks and several business leaders, including A.G. Gaston, welcomed the group during a ceremony at the Birmingham Municipal Auditorium. According to reporter Richard A. Jackson of the Birmingham World, the up-and-coming preacher Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “exploded” in response to their greetings.
He told the men and the crowd, “The Negro wants his full rights now,” and also, “Negroes are not afraid of the white man…Negroes are not interested in marrying white women…that came from the other side of the fence by the whites.”
Commissioner Morgan and others stormed off the stage.
Eventually, the smoke cleared, and it was convention business as usual. There was a “mammoth” youth parade Thursday night. The group also passed a resolution to support the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling against segregation and planned for a Thanksgiving Day pilgrimage to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
The church delegation had cleared out of the city by Sunday, and Gaston readied himself for the official introduction of the motel to the people of Birmingham. In the Wednesday, June 30 issue of the Birmingham News, a large display ad posted an invitation for all to the official opening of the A.G. Gaston Motel. It was touted as “The Nation’s Newest and Finest Motel for Negroes!”
The amenities listed were:
• Completely air-conditioned
• Gas heat from a central heating system
• Thirty-two units (large and small suites)
• Double and single accommodations
• Spacious lobby
• Completely equipped cafeteria
• Convenient, spacious parking court
• Automatic musical vending device in each unit
Two days later, on Thursday, July 1, Gaston held the official grand opening at 6:30 p.m. The whole community was invited, and the dais was filled with a
who’s who of black and white Birmingham.
“The new motel serves as a creative symbol spotlighting locally the thrust and possibilities of this raw strength,” according to Birmingham World, referring to the vast market among the Negroes.
R.A. Hester of Dallas, Texas, who was the supreme chancellor of the Knights of Pythias and was in town for a Lodge Knights of Pythias convention, said it was “the finest hostelry for Negroes in the nation.”
The speakers at the opening included Commissioner Morgan; Attorney Shores, who was also chairman of the board of management of the Eighteenth Street Branch YMCA; Mervyn H. Sterne, an investment banker and member of the Birmingham Interracial Committee; Colonel Paul Singer, director of the Birmingham Police Department; and Lowell S. Hamilton, president of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, among others.
A.G. Gaston and Dallas native R.A. Hester, the supreme chancellor of the Knights of Pythias, stand in the courtyard of the Gaston Motel. Courtesy of Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
Morgan said Gaston was “the best citizen and best business man of Birmingham,” according to Birmingham World. He said Gaston “really made his life count.”
Morgan also added that Gaston was “a first-class citizen” and that “I’m glad to call him my friend.” He said he was proud of the man’s achievement and the place he occupied in the favorable growth of the city.
Sterne remarked that there is “no limit to the economic progress you should make.”
Shores said that Gaston was one of the giants of business and connected his achievements with improving the general conditions of the Negro group that made possible such progress.
Mrs. Ruth J. Jackson, president of the Birmingham–Jefferson County Housewives League, introduced Gaston, calling him “Birmingham’s No. 1 businessman.”
When Gaston spoke to the crowd, he thanked “my white and colored friends” for their show of faith and support. He also thanked the platform guests and “other white friends who have aided and encouraged us in this endeavor.”
Reverend J.W. Goodgame, pastor of Sixth Avenue Baptist Church, gave the invocation. There were dedicatory expressions given by Miss Alliene Goldsmith, and the occasion was given by L.R. Hall, who presided over the event.
The Booker T. Washington Business College choir, under the direction of W.J. Allen, performed.
By coincidence, said the Birmingham World writer, the dedication came the same week a study made by the National Urban League was released showing the improved economic status of Negro workers in the South during the past fifteen years. In addition, Time magazine ran a feature on the annual $11 billion Negro market in the United States.
Things were looking up for the Negro, it seemed.
Chapter 3
A PLACE FOR US
Carolyn McKinstry remembers well when the Gaston Motel opened its doors. As a young girl, she heard the adults talk about it and had to see for herself what was inside. One day after Sunday school, she and her friend Junie Collins walked over from Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.
“We sat down and ordered a Coca-Cola, which was a big deal,” McKinstry said. It was the first time she had been able to sit down as a colored person and order something in a restaurant without fear of being gawked at or forced to leave.
“It was exhilarating, like we had been given new life,” she said. “We could go do what everyone else [white people] could do.”
And that Coke.
“That Coke was absolutely wonderful,” she said. She mused about the thirty-five-cent beverage that was served with crushed ice in a tall glass and with a straw. “I haven’t had a Coke that tasted that good since,” she said.
While Gaston’s doors were now open to her, all she had known before were doors that were sealed shut. When she walked to school along Finley Avenue West every day, she had to pass by the popular meat-and-three Niki’s West Steak and Seafood Restaurant. It did not serve blacks, and her father cautioned her to not even “look like she wanted to eat” there, McKinstry said. Instead, when she neared the tan and brick building, she crossed the street so it would not appear for one second that she wanted to go inside.
The “whites only” restaurants and businesses were like dangling carrots outside the black community’s reach. “They put them in the midst of your neighborhood and say, ‘You can’t go,’” she said.
At Gaston’s, though, McKinstry was welcomed and treated with dignity, she said. She felt the Gaston experience was “preparation for what was to come.” He primed blacks for what it would feel like to be integrated, she said, to be allowed access to what had been forbidden for many years.
“It was a great place,” said Dale Long, whose father, Alexander Long, became the night manager around 1958 until about 1978. The motel, outfitted with a bright, shiny, malt shop and booming jukebox loaded with popular tunes of the day, was appealing to youngsters, he said.
“Kids skipped school to be there,” Long said and admitted, “I saw stuff I wasn’t supposed to see.”
The motel was perfectly sandwiched between the black churches in the community and the place where the youngsters purchased their candy stash. Between 9:00 a.m. Sunday school and 11:00 a.m. church service, the kids from Sixteenth Street Baptist, St. Paul and Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Churches would buy penny candy at Citizen’s drugstore across the street from the motel. “The drugstore was the meet-up place,” Long said. “I would spend my church money.” At that time, youth were often in and out of the buildings around that area.
Minnie Gaston, a caramel brown beauty who loved fashion and was always on a diet, never mothered any children of her own. Her nearly five dozen nieces and nephews, however, were like her babies. As a young child, she had a sick mother and a father who worked day in and day out to provide for their large family. She made it her mission to educate her sisters and brothers as well as their children.47
Being one of Minnie’s “children” meant you had to attend the Booker T. Washington Business College during the summers, whether you were age two or twenty-two. The call went out to the kids who were living everywhere from New York City to up the road in Smithfield. She was the director of the institution, which got its start in 1939 to train blacks in business skills and get them ready for jobs in local businesses, many of which were Gaston enterprises.
Classes included typing, bookkeeping and dictation, among other things. The Gardner kids studied those skills as well as a curriculum divided between the lessons of Booker T. Washington and historian W.E.B. DuBois, with the expectation “that they would become ‘The Talented Tenth—who typed.’”48
“We all had to go to school,” Washington said. “Everybody had to go. You had to do something: typing, math, shorthand. I learned to type and wish I would have taken shorthand.”
After a morning of class, the tradition was that at lunchtime the clan of Gardner kids—a rainbow of brown, attractive, well-dressed children, up to a dozen at a time—would walk across the street to the Gaston Motel and order hamburgers, fries and icy Coca-Colas, Washington said. It gave them great pleasure to tell the waitress to “put it on my tab.”
Husband-and-wife team Mr. and Mrs. Matthews managed the place at the time. Arzell Skipwith, whom folks called “Skippie,” was the cashier at the restaurant. She was out of Birminghamport and had a bright personality; she didn’t meet any strangers.
At the end of the day, Minnie would collect the tickets from lunch and pay the bill. That is, until Victor Gardner tried to order a beer, Washington remembered with a hearty laugh. That put an end to that.
The place was a source of pride, and just as if it was his own living room, Gaston would often tweak the décor, Washington remembered. After returning from a safari in Africa, he brought several items to the motel and decked the place with African relics, black cushions, sleek high-backed bar stools and leopard wallpaper. He called it the “Leopard Lounge.”
Washington recalled that Gaston “saw those hand drying machines” out west and bro
ught them to the motel. He also had photographs of him and his wife hanging on the walls and added plush booths.
Gaston was a regular at the motel lounge. He and Minnie would come in and sit at the nicest, biggest booth, Washington said. “A.G. would order a bloody rare T-bone steak, salad, burnt toast and a Michelob. That was his regular.”
There was much to celebrate with the motel added to the coffer of black businesses in Birmingham. The Gaston Motel was the pride of the community. But still, as long as Jim Crow thrived, there was much to be unsettled about. Although blacks could now experience first-class accommodations at Gaston’s, they still could not be treated like full-fledged citizens with access to the same jobs and facilities as others.
In 1955, Shuttlesworth led a petition to demand that the city hire a black policeman.49 He thought that surely his fellow clergy would be onboard with his effort and sought out the support of the powerful Baptist Ministers’ Conference led by Reverend J.L. Ware. The group refused. Ware and Shuttlesworth were rivals. Ware “believed that Shuttlesworth was attempting to usurp his role,” wrote Dr. Wilson Fallin in The African American Church in Birmingham, 1815–1963: A Shelter in the Storm.50 Even without them, though, Shuttlesworth got close to five thousand signatures and presented the petition to the city commission.
A.G. and Minnie Gaston. Courtesy of Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
But nothing was ever done, according to historian Dr. Glenn Eskew in Birmingham Revolutionaries: The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Soon after the petition, “the lynching of Emmett Till cooled any reformist sympathies in city government and the police force remained all white.”51
The A G Gaston Motel in Birmingham Page 3