‘Green Book’ motel that once housed MLK under renovation as new national monument
A long-vacant motel in Birmingham, Ala. that once housed the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is being renovated as a tourist site under a 2017 plan pushed by former President Barack Obama.
A long-vacant motel in Birmingham, Alabama that once housed the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is being renovated as a tourist site under a 2017 plan pushed by former President Barack Obama.
The 65-year-old A.G. Gaston Motel, featured in The Negro Motorist Green Book for Black travelers, is being revitalized as part of the new Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, The Associated Press is reporting.
The $10 million project includes shoring up masonry damaged by decades of weather and taking down newer additions to the structure. Workers have their job cut out for them, with missing windows, and leaves and trash taking up space in hallways.
“It’s in terrible shape now, but it’s structurally sound,” Rogers Hunt, who is overseeing the work, told the AP.
The motel is said to have housed some of the greats of the civil rights era and beyond, including the late Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin, pianist and orchestra leader Duke Ellington, and actor/activist Harry Belafonte.
“This was a state-of-the-art hotel, whether you were Black or white,” James Poindexter, a superintendent on the project, told the AP.
In 1963, King stayed in a large room at the motel during a turbulent time in Birmingham, when authorities used fire hoses to subdue civil rights demonstrators. A bomb exploded outside of the motel after King and other figures in the movement held a press conference about desegregation efforts, the AP reports.
While the building is in disrepair, workers are trying to find door frames to match those that the motel boasted in its prime and are aiming to restore it to its former glory, Hunt told the news organization.
“We have the original plans to go by,” Hunt said.
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