The Booker T. Motel was determined to be eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places (MRHP) under criterion A for its significance in African-American history and commerce in Humboldt, Tennessee. The period of significance for the Booker T. Motel (also known as the Booker T. "Colored" Motel and Restaurant) extends from 1954, the year the motel was constructed, through 1970, when ownership changed hands from Mr. Alfred Pulliam to Mr. Ollie Armour. During the period of significance, accommodations for traveling African-Americans were few and far between. Strategically, the motel was located near the intersection of U.S. Highways 79 and 70A just blocks from Humboldt’s business district and in the heart of the historically African-American community. The establishment became one of the few places African-Americans could stop and stay while traveling between Memphis and Nashville. The motel had the distinction of being advertised in the Green Book (The Negro Travelers Green Book originated in New York by mail carrier Victor H. Green in 1937 to give African-American’s direction on where they could stop or stay along their route to avoid unwanted dangers) and was featured in Ebony magazine article in 1955 titled “Hotels on the Highway”. The motel’s barbeque restaurant was also one of the only places in the area where African-American guests did not have to enter through a segregated back door and is an important example of a Black-owned barbeque restaurant.
An October 8, 1953 Jackson Sun (Jackson, TN newspaper) article announced that Humboldt “will shortly have the only Negro tourist court between Memphis and Nashville.” The article said that the motel would be “for the accommodation of colored people only”, would be located “on lower Main Street, and attributed the “unique name of this latest addition to the local business institutions is in honor, of course, of the founder and first president of the Tuskegee Institute, Dr. Booker T. Washington.” The motel opened with a formal dedication ceremony on January 31, 1954. According to an announcement in the Jackson Sun, the “general public, white and Negro,” were invited to attend the event which marked “another ‘first’ for Humboldt and probably also a first for the entire state.” The Green Book documents that there were other at least eighteen hotels throughout the state that served African-American visitors, but none were described as a motel. An original Booker T. Motel advertising sign is in the National Museum of African American History and Culture to tell the story of African-American travel in the mid-twentieth century. And, there are no other known African-American motels in Tennessee, rendering the Booker T. Motel a rare surviving monument to the struggle African-Americans endured during segregation and a historically significant, vital commercial enterprise in Tennessee’s African American history.
On July, 25, 2018, the Booker T. Motel was officially added to the NRHP. All of the information above (and much more) was found on the original documents submitted for listing consideration and can be viewed here:
npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/AssetDetail/aa7208e2-5716-4c26-9f7...
Three bracketed photos were taken with a handheld Nikon D7200 and combined with Photomatix Pro to create this HDR image. Additional adjustments were made in Photoshop CS6.
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