At the Ben Moore Hotel, a Barbershop Became Part of Montgomery’s Civil Rights Story

For generations, the Malden Brothers Barbershop welcomed customers to the Ben Moore Hotel. Its history-and the hotel's-will be documented as preservation work moves forward.

In 1958, Nelson Malden and his brothers opened the Malden Brothers Barbershop inside the Ben Moore Hotel. The shop became a neighborhood gathering place, where customers could get a haircut and talk about what was happening in Montgomery. Among them was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose relationship with Malden began several years earlier.

That everyday scene-barbers, customers and conversation-was part of the hotel's larger history. The Ben Moore was a place where Black travelers could find lodging during segregation, and where community life and the work of the Civil Rights Movement met.

A hotel built for a community

Opened in 1951 by Montgomery businessman Matthew Franklin "Ben" Moore, the hotel served Black visitors when segregation restricted where they could stay. It was listed in The Negro Motorist Green Book, the guide that helped Black travelers find welcoming and safe places on the road.

The hotel was also part of a lively business and social scene. Its spaces included the Majestic Café, the Malden Brothers Barbershop and the rooftop Afro Club. Civil-rights leaders and activists were among the people associated with the hotel and the neighborhood.

The barbershop's story offers a close-up view of that history. Nelson Malden's oral history, preserved by the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, recounts how he and his brothers established their shop at the hotel and describes his relationship with Dr. King. The shop remained in operation for decades, serving customers while Montgomery changed around it.

Preserving the building and its stories

The City of Montgomery has received two National Park Service grants totaling $800,000 through the Historic Preservation Fund's African American Civil Rights program. A $750,000 award will support Phase I rehabilitation of the Ben Moore Hotel. A separate $50,000 award will support a National Register nomination focused on the hotel and oral-history research.

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 research and documentation work will help record the hotel's architecture and the experiences of people connected to it through interviews, photographs, archival research and community engagement. The hotel is within the Centennial Hill Historic District, which was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2024. The new nomination will document the Ben Moore Hotel's own history and significance.

The Conservation Fund acquired the hotel in 2025 and is working with the City and the Landmarks Foundation of Montgomery on preservation and community conversations about the building's future. The grants support important steps in that work: caring for the structure while ensuring that the people and places connected to it are remembered.

The Malden Brothers Barbershop is one part of that story. Its history reminds us that places of everyday life-where neighbors met, worked and talked-also helped shape Montgomery's civil-rights history.