the black section of town and for black travelers visiting the city. Black musicians came to the Ben Moore to play jazz and perform in the rooftop garden of the hotel, which was referred to as the Afro Club. According to Nelson, the club boasted a clientele of beautiful, sophisticated, and intellectual African American women. “These were some of the most attractive black girls I had ever seen in my life,” he said. “They were all from the area or attended Alabama State.”
For the Malden brothers, opening a barbershop connected to the Ben Moore turned out to be a great business decision. Because of all the activity in the area, new clients were easy to come by, and having cut hair in College Hill for so many years, they had built solid client–barber relationships with many of their customers, who remained loyal when the Maldens opened their own shop. All the leading figures who were customers at College Hill, the doctors and professors, followed them to Jackson Street. When Reverend King followed, too, Nelson’s previous employers were devastated. And students continued to come as well, flooding in from Alabama State. Nelson estimated that at least 75 percent of the students at the college were regulars, as well as many of the famous Tuskegee Airmen, who often travelled from the nearby base to get haircuts. Even the black military men from Maxwell Field, later named Maxwell Air Force Base, became regulars. Legendary singers from the old school, like Little Richard and B.B. King, also stopped in from time to time.
The young minds and passionate personalities at the barbershop made its atmosphere electrifying. It was one of the few institutions of business in Montgomery where black people could sit together undisturbed and talk about anything and everything.
The black barbershop and the black church were the only places we had. At that time, we didn’t realize the value of the black barbershop. It was one of the few places where we could congregate and express ourselves in a community atmosphere. There were many subjects that we passionately discussed, like politics, the government, racism, and women. We could express what we really felt about issues that affected our lives. It was like a sanctuary, and that’s what made it so unique. And you could say things that you couldn’t say in the church. You couldn’t go to the church and talk about most of the things we talked about in the barbershop. In the barbershop, you could talk about anything that you wanted, like race, sports, or sex. You could talk about how hard Jackie Robinson hit the baseball in a game the previous night. When Joe Louis knocked out Max Schmeling, I remember people ran out of the barbershop and into the street, hollering and screaming, “Joe knocked out Max Schmeling, Joe knocked out Schmeling.” This was a place where we felt comfortable opening up and talking, almost like a second home.
King got the same style of haircut about once a week, often on a Saturday night, but sometimes, if he had a special speaking engagement early the next week, he’d come by the barbershop just to get a shape-up or have his mustache trimmed. While he was in the barber’s chair, he and Nelson often had casual conversations about his kids, the church, or whatever was going on in the news at the time. King spent a considerable amount of time in the Malden Brothers Barbershop after they opened at 407 S. Jackson Street, which was right down the street from King’s home at number 309. King would also come to the shop sometimes just to sit and read or write.
If two clients were in the barbershop that Nelson thought would benefit from knowing each other, he always made sure to make an introduction, but sometimes it didn’t go smoothly.
Here in the barbershop, we often had debates and discussions about whichever current events were in the news at the time—religion, race, sports, you name it! One of the best debates that I can recall was between Reverend King and a client of mine who was a sociology professor and the head of the sociology department at the Hampton Institute [a major institution for black higher education at the time]. He had relatives living down in south Alabama whom he would visit, but he’d stop in Montgomery to get his hair cut. He was a bona fide intellectual from head to toe. One day he came into the barbershop at a time when I had just finished cutting Reverend King’s hair. Reverend King was an intellectual as well, and he had a bachelor’s of science in sociology from Morehouse, so I thought it would be nice to introduce him to the professor. The professor was already familiar with Martin because by then he was well on his way to becoming a world-renowned leader.
I don’t remember how the topic came up, but I do remember when Reverend King said to the professor, “Morality is one of the strongest forces in the American family today.”
The sociology professor from the Hampton Institute disagreed with the reverend and said, “I beg your pardon, sir, but I believe that economics is the strongest force in the American family.” He went on to say, “When the European white men came to this country, one of the first things they did was to build some of the top universities in the New England area to educate themselves. When they got oranges in Florida, sugar cane in Louisiana, oil in Texas, grapes in California, and tobacco in Virginia, they built Wall Street to control the capital, and then they built West Point to defend it.” He said, “That is the United States of America.”
Reverend King said, “Have a good day, sir.”
I think that was one of the only times when the reverend didn’t win an intellectual discussion in the barbershop. He knew how to debate well, but he also knew how to have a conversation with the common man. King’s unique oratory skills were never intended to place himself above the people, but he used that communication skill to submerge himself in the community, where the people who mattered most to him were the common man.
I asked Nelson if King was always working on civil rights matters and he explained that King was a workaholic and travelled often, so he spent a lot of his downtime with his family. He often conducted meetings in the basement of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. The church building sometimes functioned as a headquarters where he brainstormed with others involved in the leadership of the movement and conducted the business of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
One of the things Nelson said he appreciated about the reverend was that money was never more important to him than the people he served. One Saturday night when Nelson was cutting his hair, King had his briefcase with him, which was filled with letters from people from all over the country. Several of the letters contained money from his supporters, donations to support his civil rights work. Some people would send him checks, but others, mainly elderly people, would send him cash. While King was sitting in his barber chair, Nelson watched as he read the letters. According to Nelson, he read each one from beginning to end, as Nelson peeked over his shoulder to see what people were writing about. “He would casually drop the money and checks down into the briefcase on the floor next to the barber chair as he read, never paying much attention to where they landed. He was more interested in what the people were saying in the letters. From my understanding, he took the time to reply to as many as he could.”
“Did King always sit in the same chair when he came to get a haircut?” I asked.
“Yes,” Nelson affirmed. “Every time he got his hair cut here, he would only sit in my chair.”
“What are some of the other memories you have of him coming here?”
“Well, there are many of them. Martin could be hilarious when he wanted to be. He had a close friend who he would meet here sometimes named Gilbert Klein, and they would always tell jokes and tease each other. I remember the time Martin told this one joke that I knew was a little out of line.”
When Gilbert Klein said to Reverend King, “Tell me a joke,” almost everybody in the barbershop turned to listen. They knew that even though the reverend was a serious guy on most days, he still had a funny side to him.
So he began telling a joke about a white man who hired this black man to chauffeur him around because both of his legs were amputated. One Sunday morning, they went to church together. The white man wanted to sit in the front of the church, so the black man pushed his wheelchair up to the
