Picture room 30 above you, where A.G. Gaston built more than lodging for Black travelers in Alabama. Built in 1954 by local businessman A. G. Gaston, it served as premium accommodation for African American travelers and was listed in The Negro Motorist Green Book. In 1963 the Southern Christian Leadership Conference used room 30 as its headquarters — a workspace for leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, and others as they planned portions of the 1963 Birmingham campaign.
That work and that presence made this modest motel a focal point, and on May 10, 1963 the motel was bombed by white supremacist terrorists. After discrimination in public accommodation was outlawed, the motel’s business declined in the 1970s, and it was later used as senior housing from 1982 to 1996. Since 2017 it has been owned in part by the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, the National Park Service, and the City of Birmingham, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation has designated it as one of America’s National Treasures.
Picture room 30's window, and the night in 1963 when a bomb tried to silence what was planned inside.