Administration of Barack Obama, 2017
Proclamation 9565 — Establishment of the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
January 12, 2017
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
The A.G. Gaston Motel (Gaston Motel), located in Birmingham, Alabama, within walking distance of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Ingram Park, and other landmarks of the American civil rights movement (movement), served as the headquarters for a civil rights campaign in the spring of 1963. The direct action campaign—known as "Project C" for confrontation—challenged unfair laws designed to limit the freedoms of African Americans and ensure racial inequality. Throughout the campaign, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Reverend Ralph David Abernathy of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR), and other movement leaders rented rooms at the Gaston Motel and held regular strategy sessions there. They also staged marches and held press conferences on the premises. Project C succeeded in focusing the world's attention on racial injustice in America and creating momentum for Federal civil rights legislation that would be enacted in 1964.
The Gaston Motel, the highest quality accommodation in Birmingham in 1963 that accepted African Americans, was itself the product of segregation. Arthur George (A.G.) Gaston, a successful African American businessman whose enterprises addressed the needs of his segregated community, opened the motel in 1954 to provide "something fine that . . . will be appreciated by our people." In the era of segregation, African Americans faced inconveniences, indignities, and personal risk in their travels. The conveniences and comforts of the Gaston Motel were a rarity for them. The motel hosted many travelers over the years, including business and professional people; celebrities performing in the city; participants in religious, social, and political conferences; and in April-May 1963, the movement leaders, the press, and others who would bring Project C to the world stage. During Project C, King and Abernathy occupied the motel's main suite, Room 30, located on the second floor above the office and lobby, and they and their colleagues held most of their strategy sessions in the suite's sitting room.