Named for Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, the former Jefferson Davis Hotel rises in front of you in Montgomery. Built in 1927 and added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 13, 1979, this building has lived many lives. Once home to the WSFA radio studio, it was here that Hank Williams performed in the late 1930s, and where African-American preachers such as Ralph Abernathy and Martin Luther King Jr. were allowed into the studio to broadcast a sermon on Sunday mornings.
The hotel remained segregated into the 1960s, a fact that lingers in the building’s history even as its purpose has changed. Today the structure houses apartments for the elderly, a quietly altered rhythm from its radio-filled nights and hotel lobbies. As you stand here, imagine the broadcasts that once went out from this corner of Montgomery and the voices that filled the studio and the street beyond.
Feel the layers of history in the stones and the air: early radio, celebrated performances, contested social change, and now a residential roof over it all. Notice the building today, quietly serving as apartments for the elderly amid the neighborhood it once broadcast to.