City of Montgomery gets grants to help save historic Ben Moore Hotel
FILE – The closed Ben Moore Hotel, is photographed Feb. 12, 2019, in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves, File)
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WAKA) – The City of Montgomery has received two grants from the National Park Service for efforts to save the historic Ben Moore Hotel near downtown.
The grants total $800,000 and are coming from the Historic Preservation Fund’s African American Civil Rights program. A $750,000 grant will support Phase I rehabilitation, and a separate $50,000 grant will support the proposal to the National Register of Historic Places nomination and a broad range of documentation and preservation activities.
The hotel opened in 1951 by Montgomery businessman Matthew Franklin Moore. The Black-owned hotel offered lodging to Black travelers during segregation and was listed in The Negro Motorist Green Book. The hotel also housed the Majestic Café and Malden Brothers Barber Shop, and its rooftop Afro Club welcomed musical performers. Civil Rights leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, were among the figures associated with the hotel.
“The Ben Moore Hotel holds an important place in Montgomery’s history and in the story of African American enterprise and the Civil Rights Movement,” Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed said. “These grants will help advance preservation work while documenting the people and history connected to this landmark.”
The Ben Moore Preservation and Ben Moore Hotel Research and Registry programs are being supported in part by an African American Civil Rights grant from the Historic Preservation Fund administered by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior.
The $50,000 award will fund preparation of the individual National Register nomination focused on the hotel’s association with African American civil rights history, along with oral history research. The hotel is located within the Centennial Hill Historic District, which was added to the National Register in 2024; the new award supports a separate nomination for the hotel itself.
These awards build on preservation work. The Conservation Fund acquired the hotel in 2025 to protect it from demolition and enable initial stabilization. The Fund is working with the City and the Landmarks Foundation of Montgomery on community conversations about the site’s future and its stabilization needs.
As Action 8 News has reported, earlier this year, the hotel was put on the list of historic places that are currently in danger of not surviving.
The hotel is among 11 sites on this year’s annual list of the most endangered historic places in the United States compiled by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
ACTION 8 ARCHIVES: 2017 story on saving the Ben Moore Hotel
ACTION 8 ARCHIVES: 2020 story on barber who worked in Ben Moore Hotel and cut Dr. King’s hair
