World-renowned singer and songwriter Beyonce, exhausted after a sold-out performance at a Las Vegas venue, went to check into her room and was told that she didn’t have a reservation and was not allowed to sleep there. Four-time NBA Champion, LeBron James had a reservation to stay at a downtown Los Angeles hotel but was asked to enter the hotel by a back door through the kitchen to a utility elevator to get to his room.
Of course these stories are completely false! However, this was a reality when it came to travel across the United States for African Americans during the Jim Crow era. The Jim Crow period was characterized by the key belief put forth by the historic court case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which was the idea of “separate but equal.” However, as many of us know, this era in U.S. history embodied anything but equality in all aspects for Blacks in America, even when it came to travel and lodging throughout the United States.
The Great Migration of African Americans out of the South began around the turn of the 20th Century and lasted through the 1960s. Over that period, more than 6 million Blacks moved from America’s rural south to the North, Midwest and West of the United States seeking a better way of life.
One of the common misconceptions about segregation is that discrimination and Jim Crow only existed in the South. It happened all over America! Most downtown hotels across this country were off-limits to African Americans, regardless of their location. The Hotel Theresa in Harlem, New York, did not allow African Americans to stay there until 1940, after having been in operation for nearly three decades when the hotel opened in 1913.
Jim Crow also stretched its arm out as far as the beaches of Atlantic City, New Jersey, where Chicken Bone Beach was a segregated section of the Atlantic Ocean beach carved out for Blacks because they were not allowed to bath at the white-only beach.
These blatant acts of racism, intolerance and segregation towards Blacks starting as early as 1874 resulted in treatment and accommodations that were always inferior to those provided to white Americans. These atrocious conditions and sub-par facilities fueled (or coerced) Black entrepreneurship across the nation.
African-American hospitality pioneers dared to dream and erected first-class hotels and resorts deserving of their race, despite the insurmountable odds they faced.
Blacks have been involved in the hospitality industry since the late-18th Century. Rachael Pringle Polgreen, born a slave around 1753, during the 1770s to 1780s became the first woman of color to own a tavern-hotel, Royal Navy Hotel in Bridgetown, Barbados. Tunis Gulic Campbell, who was the highest-ranking and most successful African American politician in the Reconstruction Era, while sharing the stage with fellow abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, preaching against the evils of slavery, earned a living as a hotel steward in New York City and Boston, Massachusetts. In 1848, he published an action plan for waiters and other hotel management tips in “Hotel Keepers, Head Waiters, and Housekeepers’ Guide.” Hailed as the first book of its kind published in the United States provided practical information for operating a first-class hotel.
African Americans have made a deep and lasting imprint upon the history and landscape of the United States. However, the contributions and achievements of African Americans have not always been recognized and appreciated by our society at large, and sometimes have been forgotten (or unknown) by African Americans themselves. Hence, my purpose for writing my forthcoming book, "Hospitality Historiography," is to introduce its readers to the inspiring stories of historical Black entrepreneurs and hoteliers fundamentally unknown to mainstream America.
My research for "Hospitality Historiography" unveiled a world that is virtually unknown to most people, even most people in the hospitality industry. On a bi-monthly basis, I will share an inspiring story of these African-American hospitality pioneers to provide readers a small glimpse into a side of hospitality virtually unknown to mainstream America.
My hope is to open the door and share some insight into a vibrant era of Black culture, community and hospitality, featuring some of the acclaimed Black hotel-owner pioneers of the 19th and 20th centuries who carved out a unique niche and lodged some of the most famous Black celebrities and luminaries, performers and political figures of their period.
On Nov. 16, 2018, a film directed by Peter Farrelly called "Green Book" hit theaters in the United States. The film, starring Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen, is inspired by the true story of a 1962 tour of the Deep South by African-American pianist Don Shirley and Italian-American bouncer and later actor Frank "Tony Lip" Vallelonga, who served as Shirley's driver and bodyguard. However, most Americans, both Black and white, were totally unfamiliar with what the film is based on — "The Negro Motorist Green Book," which was a guide for Black travelers published by Victor Hugo Green from 1936 to 1966. The movie opened the eyes of many to a different side of hospitality and travel for African Americans.
My hope is that readers find these Black hospitality pioneers and their stories equally inspiring and eye-opening — and these stories help to spur a reenergized level of innovation and entrepreneurship among hospitality professionals today.
Calvin Stovall is a keynote speaker, author and hospitality historian with ICONIC Presentations, LLC. He has nearly 30 years of experience in the hospitality, including as a front desk clerk at the Holiday Inn City Centre in downtown Chicago and vice president of brand marketing with Hilton.
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