Dish City S2E4: "When D.C.

Burned In 1968"

Patrick Fort [00:00:00] Hey, it's Patrick Fort.

Ruth Tam [00:00:01] And Ruth Tim. Last week, Washingtonians were getting ready to
gradually reopen society. But as local restaurants opened their doors and we geared up to
cover it. The news of a police killing of a Minneapolis man named George Floyd hit our
region. So on Friday, May 29, while people officially dined al fresco for the first time in
three months, protesters marched down 14th Street to the White House to demand justice
for George Floyd and freedom from police brutality.

Patrick Fort [00:00:30] The protests have continued for several days now. On Saturday,
buildings near the White House were broken into and burned and many critical voices,
most notably President Trump's, chimed in to say that all this destruction...It wasn't protest.
It was a crime against small businesses, particularly businesses owned by Black
Americans and other people of color.

Ruth Tam [00:00:52] Given how big these protests have gotten, it's hard to say who is
responsible for vandalism and looting. Even though you can't pin these actions on any one
group right now, pitting activists against small businesses in these situations is pretty
common. It's happening in other cities right now. It happened in L.A. during the Rodney
King riots in 1992. And in D.C. after Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination and the
protests that followed in 1968.

Patrick Fort [00:01:18] On our very first episode, about the half-smoke, the 1968 uprising
in D.C. comes up because Ben's Chili Bowl on U Street, which made the half-smoke
famous, played a significant role during that four day long protest.

Ruth Tam [00:01:31] Given everything that's going on, we wanted to share more of our
conversation with Ben's Chili Bowl co-founder Virginia Ali. She witnessed the protests then
and has seen a lot in the 62 years that Ben's has been open.

Patrick Fort [00:01:43] Here's Virginia. We talked in October of 2018.

Virginia Ali [00:01:47] I'm Virginia Ali. My husband Ben and I opened Ben's Chili Bowl on
August 22nd, 1958. I came to Washington in 1952 from Virginia. And this was still a
segregated city. My first job was at Industrial Bank, which is our African American
operated bank that's still there today.

[00:02:12] My husband Ben had come from Trinidad to attend Howard University's dental
school. He worked his way through school by working in restaurants. And when I met him
a few years after that and we wanted to be married, he wanted to be self-employed. And
the business that he knew best was this restaurant business. Let's try that.

[00:02:31] I said, OK. Well, of course, where would you want to open a place like that?
You want to open it where there are lots of people.

[00:02:38] There were lots of hamburger places, around, but not so many hot places and
certainly not with chili. We decided to do that. And when we opened, hot dogs were the
number one seller back then by far. It just kind of evolved over the years with the chili
sauce and the half-smoke is half beef, half pork and and half smoked and spicy, that we
serve on a hot dog bun with mustard, onions and our homemade spicy chili sauce. The
half-smoke is the number one selling and is also known as Washington's signature dish.

[00:03:20] We had the jukebox with the loud music going all the time. We had tried to hire
very friendly staff and we tried to provide an atmosphere of home. It was sort of the
neighborhood hangout. Then it was kind of a meeting place for people. A quick snack. And
of course, at night on a Friday and Saturday night, when you're out at clubs, we were open
until four o'clock in the morning from day one. We had a slogan, sober up with a chili dog.

[00:03:55] So being a segregated city, we didn't go downtown to the theater or to dinner.

But we had everything we needed right here in our Shaw community. And this was where
all the action as this is Black Broadway, this was where people were. Then we were
integrated. And, of course, the change began because now we don't have to wait to go to
our theater. We could go downtown. We could go downtown for dinner. And that was the
beginning of the money leaving the African American community.

[00:04:33] The big change came April 4th, 1968, when Dr. King was assassinated. I
remember vividly someone running in the doorway and saying Dr. King has been shot.
Well, we don't believe that. And then we hear it again and again, we find a transistor radio,
turn that on and then we hear hymns being played. Dr. King's actually expired. So people
were crying. Everybody's crying. How could this very gentle leader of ours be taken away
so violently?

Speaker in documentary [00:05:11] "...something should be did about it. I mean, right
now we still haven't found the murder yet. And I think that we should..."

Virginia Ali [00:05:19] After a while, the sadness turned to frustration and the frustration
turned to anger and the uprising began.

TV broadcaster [00:05:27] "Late today, the president declared a state of emergency and
regular army troops moved into the nation's capital to protect strategic locations from the
violence spreading through the city."

Virginia Ali [00:05:37] The uprising was severe and there was a curfew put in place for 3
nights. Stokely Carmichael had said because of Dr. King's death, we need to all close all
businesses.

[00:05:49] We were the only place that was allowed or even asked to remain open during
that curfew period. I'm not sure who made that decision, Stokely Carmichael told me he
did, and that provided a place for first responders and police officers, city officials and even
activists to have someplace to come and have something to eat, maybe have a
conversation about how to quell the violence.

[00:06:17] It was scary. It was really scary. The National Guard was called in after that
second day. When I was here, it was like...grateful that we had a place that they could
come to and feeling, you know, feeling happy that we could provide some place of comfort.
And some place of just to come get away from what was going on in the street. I mean,
you could see fires and flames burning.

TV broadcaster [00:06:44] From the air, the scene looked unreal. A row of fires in the
middle of an otherwise tranquil city.
Virginia Ali [00:06:52] When we did go home, you don't know if you're going to find a
Molotov cocktail coming in the window the next morning. Your place is gone too. After the
riots, the destruction of the businesses, those businesses didn't reopen. Middle class
African Americans were moving away rapidly and we just were left with this boarded up,
burned out, devastated community that took a downhill turn for 20 years. It was really hard
to watch because after the riots, I don't know how long, maybe two years or three, Heroin
moved in. Then crack moved in. And this beautiful community became a serious ghetto
until 1988. '68 to '88. 1988, the city decided to build a subway system here, the Green Line
right across the street.

[00:07:59] They found three surviving businesses in the immediate vicinity. Our bank, our
flower shop –Lee's Flower Shop now being operated by the third generation– And Ben's. I
refused to close. My husband thought we should just close for at least a year. Not doing
that. After Dr. King's death, we had the Poor People's March. We had a lot of things going
on in the civil rights movement and we were able to provide food just for the people that
came in early. And from a long distance, we were able to be there to support them. And
we've always had such an array and such a diverse group of people. You know, you can
have a judge sittin' next to a junkie any day at the Chili Bowl.

[00:08:46] Now, there's a lot of nostalgia because we've been here so long and because
we've persevered. Because we've been able to hold on when it was so difficult during the
rioting era, during the drug era. It's been difficult.

[00:09:05] Now, of course, we've got lots of competition, but we've been here long enough
to be able to stand on our own two feet.

Ruth Tam [00:09:14] It's really painful that these deaths keep happening and that this
news is so cyclical and these protests have to happen over and over again.

Patrick Fort [00:09:22] But it is reassuring to hear from someone like Virginia Ali, who has
seen this before. Ben's isn't just a reminder of what was here before. It's a symbol of what
can grow out of a really dark time.

Ruth Tam [00:09:35] I think this interview hits a little differently for me now than when we
recorded it two years ago. When I listen to it now, I hear that Virginia is pretty honest about
the impacts that the 1968 protests had on her community. I mean, there was real
devastation here. And yet she's saying that supporting local businesses and being vocal
about civil rights...those things aren't mutually exclusive. And that's something that a
number of local businesses here have been saying recently, particularly locally-owned
places downtown like Teaismm, Busboys and Poets and Dolcezza...all those places saw
their storefronts damaged recently.

Patrick Fort [00:10:11] U Street and Shaw have changed a lot since 1968. Like Virginia
Ali said, it used to be a Black neighborhood and now it's not. For more on that change and
what have half-smokes have to do with it, check out our first episode.

Ruth Tam [00:10:26] We'll actually be back with a new episode in two weeks. So restart
that clock. We'll see you then.