THE WHITELAW HOTEL - LUXURY LODGING BUILT BY AND FOR BLACK PATRONS
The world that we live in is unjust – it raises up one and then pulls down another; some people refer to this behavior as human nature, never challenging the status quo unless they are personally impacted. No one is more acquainted with this push and pull dynamic than enslaved Africans and their descendants. Unfavorable history documents that nations were molded like clay and prospered economically because of the free labor of enslaved Africans that were trafficked during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. White supremacist, overwhelmed with feelings of intimidation, frantically conjured up a worldwide smear campaign to discredit the brilliance and expertise of the Africans that they owned, deeming them as three-fifths of a human being. As providence would decree, Mr. John Whitelaw Lewis, the son of enslaved parents, contradicted those false accusations and opened the doors of the Whitelaw Hotel, named after his mother, on November 24, 1919, in Washington, DC!
TRANSITION
Freedom didn’t provide much relief for former slaves post the abolishment of slavery in 1865. Transitioning from enslavement to Jim Crow laws, while still being seen as an inferior class, they were denied access to white-owned commercial establishments such as restaurants, museums, and hotels. Lewis, born in 1867, voyaged to the District of Columbia in 1894 and found work as a brick carrier. After successfully taking over the brickyard and becoming the president of the local laborer’s union, he founded the Industrial Savings Bank in 1913, which he would use as a financial conduit for business development on Black Broadway in Washington, DC. Next, Lewis hired one of the first black registered architects in the United States, Isaiah T. Hatton, to design the nation’s first black owned luxury hotel-apartment to provide upscale lodging accommodations, with a ballroom for notable events catering to black celebrities and dignitaries such as George Washington Carver, Jesse Owens, and Mary Church Terrell. Lewis was quoted as saying, “we must be in a position to take care of the people of our race.”
PROVISION & CRAFTSMANSHIP
Fully financed by a community of black entrepreneurs and investors that each strategically purchased $12 shares of ownership, Lewis subcontracted black craftsmen to expertly pour concrete, lay bricks, install elevators, and plaster walls for a construction cost of $158,000. Upon completion, over 20,000 people came to admire the four-story building curated with an Italian Renaissance Revival Architectural interior style per the directives of Hatton, who also designed the Industrial Savings Bank. The hotel-apartment layout consisted of 22 rooms and 25 apartments with a host of amenities in a luxurious atmosphere with grand stained-glass skylight, filigree, and tile that was normally reserved for establishments that were designated for white patrons. The Whitelaw was highly sought after and gained prestige after being listed in colored postal worker, Victor Hugo Green’s, “The Negro Motorist Green Book,” the bible of black travel during Jim Crow.
Source: Ghostofdc.org
Unfortunately, the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, legally desegregating commercial enterprises, caused the Whitelaw to lose business to white-owned hotels. Moreover, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 ensued riots and the surrounding middle class neighborhood experienced an increase in crime, unemployment, and drugs; In 1971 the Whitelaw was cited for 351 building code violations and officially closed in 1977. In 1991, the Whitelaw Hotel was purchased by Manna, Inc., a non-profit, and refurbished into low to moderate income housing in 1992. The distinguished building that was once a hospitable haven for performers like Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington, now offers five one-bedroom units, 20 two-bedroom units, and ten three-bedroom units. Although the glory years of the Whitelaw Hotel have faded, it remains as a standing testament of the monumental capacity of black human beings to dream and build even after being torn down as a people. Selah
“We must be in a position to take care of the people of our race.”
SOURCE: EE.LINKEDIN.COM