On Sunday morning, the ladies gathered again at the Gastonian Room for a breakfast party and goodbyes. Link Vara Hinton presided. “Sad goodbyes were voiced as parting time came,” the reporter wrote.
Samuetta Drew remembers that her parents went to the Gaston for dinner every Sunday after church. It was inspiring to see the name of a black man on the outside of a building and know that inside there was a first-class facility, she said.
“It was the place to go for fine dining,” she said, recalling the soft music, white tablecloths and waiters who were dressed to impress. “You didn’t order from the counter,” Drew remarked. “You sat down.”
She remembers the nice, tall printed menus with black backs and “A.G. Gaston” embossed on them in gold. There was a divider painted with gold circles, “like in the movies,” she said.
The menu was luxurious for the times, she said: seafood, steaks, pork and chicken.
“It was a place we could go and be treated with dignity,” she said. “It was a place you could go and feel proud. You did not have to be a kid in the window of a candy shop looking in. You could go inside and partake.”
Dale Long’s parents treated him and his friends to dinner at Gaston’s in honor of their graduation. This was their first experience eating at a restaurant. “It was the first time I ever ate shrimp,” Long said. “Black kids didn’t have that experience,” he said. His brother ate the shrimp, too, the tails and all.
There were many middle-class blacks who wanted to have an experience. “You knew that lifestyle was available,” Drew said. “It gave you a sense of who you are: not a second-class citizen, although everything around you was saying that,” she said. “It showed you that if you wanted to own something, you could.”
Her mother was a member of Club Excelsior’s for teachers, and every Saturday after Christmas, they held their New Year’s Eve brunch there. It was a tradition. Everyone wore after-five attire. Drew said she could not wait to get older so that she could be among the group.
Pretty soon, the Gibsons began to realize that they were uniquely positioned not just to host social affairs but also to be part of the civil rights movement—whether they wanted to or not.
Over in Collegeville, Shuttlesworth was working tirelessly. He sent a petition to Commissioner Art Hanes requesting the desegregation of public facilities. Hanes, ever resistant, sent him a letter saying that the petition had been trashed.
Shuttlesworth needed King’s help again. He sent word to him: “If you come to Birmingham, you will not only gain prestige, but really shake the country. If you win in Birmingham, as Birmingham goes, so goes the nation.”79
King and his group of activists and strategists heard his cry and made plans to come.
“On April 3—having held off as long as was necessary—Martin and I flew to Birmingham to begin our most ambitious campaign,” Reverend Ralph Abernathy wrote in And the Walls Came Tumbling Down.80 The SCLC and Shuttlesworth’s ACMHR joined for a campaign of sit-ins at local lunch counters.81
Together, they had a list of demands:
The desegregation of lunch counters, restrooms, fitting rooms and drinking fountains in variety and department stores.
The upgrading and hiring of Negroes on a nondiscriminatory basis throughout the business and industrial community of Birmingham.
The dropping of all charges against jailed demonstrators.
The creation of a biracial committee to work out a timetable for desegregation in other areas of Birmingham life.82
“The Gaston Motel was Birmingham’s only acceptable black inn, the place where black business and professional people stayed when they visited the city,” Abernathy wrote.83 King entered the motel and approached Gibson about taking over the place.
“Martin came in with a group—Wyatt Tee Walker, Andy Young, Abernathy and Shuttlesworth,” Gibson remembered. “They all came in and met with me in reference to the fact that they would like to take over all of the rooms and did I have any problem with it.
“I said that I did not, but I could not give them all of the rooms. I am a member of the motel association, and I have to have a portion of the facilities available. They went along with it. Immediately, Dr. King took over the main suite.”
It was fate, the men thought. “Dr. King was so pleased that I was at the motel,” said Gibson. King said it was meant to be, that “God sent you here,” Gibson remembered.
Gibson’s friendship with King was born back in Gibson’s Tuskegee University days. They met in Tuskegee right after King got his doctorate in Boston and was taking over the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery. At the time, Gibson was active with the Tuskegee Civic Association, an organization that was very involved in civil rights in Macon County. Gibson and the group regularly fought for the right to vote, to get public accommodations and to “get things that we as citizens should have bestowed upon us.”
Senator Sam Engelhardt of Macon County was a state legislator at the time and did not like that movement, Gibson said. “He tried to gerrymander us out of Macon County,” Gibson remembered. “We fought him as the civic organization. We took it to the Supreme Court and won.”
When King, who was just miles up the road in Montgomery, heard about the courageous group, he and fellow minister Ralph Abernathy came to Tuskegee to study the movement. Gibson was impressed with young King, he said. “He was so dynamic and articulate,” Gibson said. “Then he was an Alpha.”
Gibson, who was an Episcopalian, decided instead to attend King’s Baptist church. The two became friends, he said. Gibson supported King in Montgomery during the bus boycott.
“When I accepted the position to buy the motel, I did not accept on the premise that Martin would come in with the movement,” Gibson said. Even though it has been said that the motel was retrofitted for the movement, that is not true, according to Gibson. “Gaston didn’t want the movement there at all,” he said. “Mr. Gaston was not in favor of Dr. King coming to Birmingham.”
And he wasn’t alone. Many people saw King and the others as outsiders coming to agitate an already sensitive situation. There was a line drawn in the sand between King and Shuttlesworth supporters versus Gaston’s. According to historian Glenn Eskew, Emory O. Jackson, the editor of Birmingham World, the black weekly newspaper, supported Gaston’s side. “He said little about Shuttlesworth and King as attested by the lack of coverage in the World,” Eskew wrote.84
Still, King and his group settled into the motel because there was a mission at hand. The men came and set up what would be called Project C, which stood for “confrontation.” Shuttlesworth issued the Birmingham Manifesto, which explained how past attempts to bring about change had been met with resistance and now civil disobedience and direct action would be justified.
He and the men of SCLC planned a series of direct nonviolent action, which included sit-ins, marches and kneel-ins at area lunch counters, churches and libraries. They knew Bull Connor, a staunch segregationist, and his cronies were reactionary and were banking on their behavior to shame them before a national audience. Also, they knew that boycotting retailers that supported segregation would hit them where it hurts: their pockets. Easter was around the corner and was one of the largest shopping seasons. Movement supporters were encouraged not to patronize these businesses.
Those plans were drawn up in room 30 at the Gaston Motel, King and the others said. Abernathy remembered that the suite he and King shared was a one-bedroom with two double beds and a sitting room with chairs, a table and a desk.
“It was in that sitting room that most of the strategy was hatched during the campaign,” Abernathy wrote.85
DEMONSTRATORS LAUNCHED SIT-INS at area restaurants and were arrested. Shuttlesworth and several protesters led a march to city hall and were promptly put in jail. Supporters of King and the Birmingham movement began to flood into town to link arms with the men. Famous jazz musician Al Hibbler joined the protesters and was arrested though later released.
Chapter 6
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
The Gaston was the nucleus of the civil rights movement.
—Dale Long, who grew up playing around the motel
Although the movement was moving forward, the widespread support of locals was not there. The SCLC wanted the jails of Birmingham to be overflowing with protestors, but that wasn’t happening.
Shelley Stewart remembered that King, Walker and Shuttlesworth didn’t wait for people to show up. While at his record store, Shelley’s Record Mart on 1607 Fifth Avenue North, Stewart remembered that King and others came in and bemoaned how difficult it was to get marchers. “Hey, Shelley, I sure need these people to get fired up and march,” King told Stewart. “They won’t come to the meeting.”
But King wasn’t about to let dust gather around his feet. He said, “I am going down to the poolroom.”
“That’s right, the preacher,” Stewart recalled. King and the men headed into the Fourth Avenue District, where there were countless bars, including a shoeshine place where, as quiet as it was kept, you could get whiskey in the back. King went downstairs to the poolroom in the Masonic Temple.
“An hour later, I am turning in front of my store at Seventeenth Street and Fifth Avenue North. I see Martin and about forty or fifty men following him. They were saying, ‘Freedom! Freedom!’ I said, ‘What in the world?’”
Stewart described the sight of King and Wyatt walking in step with winos and “some guys I knew from around the way.”
Dr. King stands in the Gaston Motel courtyard. Courtesy of Birmingham Public Library.
“What Martin did, he went to the poolroom, restaurant, the bar and down to Rat Killer’s. Everywhere he stopped, he told folks, ‘I need you to stand up for freedom and join me,’” Stewart remembered.
King and the group went to the courtyard of the Gaston Motel. King climbed up the stairs and faced the men so that the group could see him. “Can y’all get double what we have?” he asked them.
“He took winos and guys who were on the block. They were there when others wouldn’t come,” Stewart recalled. “That’s what it was all about. In that parking lot, that inspired me to do something that came after that.”
It inspired Stewart to do his part, to use the airways to encourage people to stand up for freedom.
But the tensions between King’s group and those who felt he was out of line for stirring up trouble had grown. Religious leaders, political influencers and the like were speaking out against King, describing him as an outsider. Many felt the segregation issue should be handled in the courts and that he was stirring up people. They thought a protest on Easter Sunday was out of line.
On April 8, King met with local black leaders at the Gaston Building so that he could make an appeal and hopefully gather support for his planned protest. It turned out to be a showdown instead. Later that night, in response, Abernathy gave a biting sermon at First Baptist Church of Ensley.86 The Cleveland Call and Post wrote that he “scathingly assailed the black ‘bourgeoisie’ to the howling delight of the rafter-packed audience.”
“Talk to your doctor, your lawyer, your insurance man and withdraw your trade from him if he is not with the movement,” Abernathy told them.
The next day, April 9, Gaston released a statement to Birmingham World that sent movement people through the roof:
I regret the absence of continued communication between the white and Negro leadership in our city and the inability of the white merchants and white power structure of community to influence the City Fathers to establish an official line of communication between the races in our city.
This condition, along with the many unsolved bombings and other incidents causing unfavorable publicity for Birmingham has made this city a very attractive target for the present unhappy situation in which we now find ourselves.
There is no doubt in my mind or in the minds of any of us, concerning the aspirations of the Negro citizens in this community and throughout the country. We want freedom and justice; and we want to be able to live and work with dignity in all endeavors where we are qualified. We also want the privilege of access to those facilities that will make an individual qualified. We also want to contribute our share for the progress of our community I believe we have capable and intelligent leadership among the colored people in the community, competent and able to work toward bringing the hopes, dreams and aspirations of the Negro citizens to reality.
The problem that Birmingham now faces were faced by other great Southern cities and, to the credit of these great cities, which lie within a short distance of us, the local leaders of their communities got their minds, talents and energies together and solved their respective problems.
Today, Birmingham now stands on the threshold of transition to greatness. The sails have been set for the City and it is now incumbent on the leadership of this community to chart its destiny.
I therefore call upon all the citizens of Birmingham to work harmoniously and together in a spirit of brotherly love to solve the problems of our city, giving due recognition to the local colored leadership among us.
A.G. Gaston, Sr.
This was seen by King as a slight to him and the other non-locals. Shuttlesworth was fuming. He had moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1961 but was still leading the Birmingham movement. The “locals” remark seemed like an attack. He accused Gaston of being “a Super Uncle Tom” and claimed that he charged too much for his rooms at the motel.87
People were considering protesting Gaston and his businesses, but Ed Gardner, a local minister and Gaston advocate, warned that if the group proceeded, he and his group of ministers would run them out of town.
Soon afterward, Shuttlesworth retracted his statement and apologized.
In order to bring the groups together, King set up an advisory committee of twenty-five men and women who would meet daily in the Gaston Motel to be briefed on the day’s events.
On April 10, Bull Connor got an injunction that made it illegal for protestors to march. It also raised the bail amount to four times its original, from $300 to $1,200. Connor vowed, “You can rest assured that I will fill the jail full of any persons violating the law as long as I’m at city hall.”
Now the movement was at a crossroads. Would it proceed with planned protests and break the law? Also, raising the bail amount meant protestors needed more money. Their biggest fundraiser, King, didn’t need to be arrested. He needed to raise more funds. But the people who had volunteered to go to jail were looking for their leader to follow them there.
To add to that, on April 12, which was Good Friday, eight clergy in Birmingham posted a statement in the Birmingham News noting that the march was “unwise and untimely.”88 They urged “our Negro community to withdraw support from these demonstrators, and to unite locally and work peacefully for a better Birmingham.” The men included the Right Reverend C.J. Carpenter, Episcopal bishop of Alabama; Reverend Joseph A. Durrick, auxiliary Roman Catholic bishop; and Rabbi Hilton Grafman of Temple Emanuel.89
From “A Group of Clergymen” published in the Birmingham News We clergymen are among those who, in January, issued “an Appeal for Law and Order and Common Sense,” in dealing with racial problems in Alabama. We expressed understanding that honest convictions in racial matters could properly be pursued in the courts, but urged that decisions of those courts should in the meantime be peacefully obeyed.
…We are now confronted by a series of demonstrations by some of our Negro citizens, directed and led in part by outsiders. We recognize the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. But we are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely.
…Just as we formerly pointed out that “hatred and violence have no sanction in our religious and political traditions,” we also point out that such actions as incite to hatred and violence, however technically peaceful those actions may be, have not contributed to the resolution of our local problems. We do not believe that these days of new hope are days
when extreme measures are justified in Birmingham.
…We further strongly urge our own Negro community to withdraw support from these demonstrations, and to unite locally in working peacefully for a better Birmingham. When rights are consistently denied, a cause should be pressed in the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets. We appeal to both our white and Negro citizenry to observe the principles of law and order and common sense.90
“Martin was particularly disturbed when he read it, shaking his head and wondering how religious leaders could encourage the kind of attitude that had created a city where bombing of black houses and churches had become almost a common occurrence,” Abernathy wrote. “He brooded about the statement long after he should have dismissed it from his mind.”
As a result, shortly after that, King’s own advisory committee also asked him not to march. “They cited the need to obey the law and their own belief that things might get out of hand, that perhaps we needed a cooling off period; that it would be improper to violate the sanctity of the Easter season by acts of disobedience that might provoke violence.”91
All twenty-five of them met in the Gaston suite to discuss the different arguments. “So we sat there in the motel suite and for a while allowed them to lecture us on the virtues of prudence and compromise,” Abernathy wrote.92
At the same time, a crowd was gathering in Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where King’s staff was getting them ready, “taking away their guns, knives and razors and telling them that they must learn to cover their heads and never strike out, even when attacked.”93 King remembers having to decide on that Good Friday whether to walk outside the motel to march and surely be arrested.
The A G Gaston Motel in Birmingham Page 6