Bricklayer's Hall Recognition

 An historic marker was dedicated on Saturday in front of the Bricklayer's Hall in Montgomery, site of an African-American Union. The building served as a meeting place during the Civil Rights era.

From the Alabama Historical Commission:

Bricklayers Hall, 530 South Union Street, Montgomery, Montgomery County

The neon letters of “Bricklayer’s Hall” stretch across a blue ribbon of signage on an unassuming brick building along South Union Street in Montgomery. Commuters in the Capitol City may have often passed the modest structure without knowing the magnitude of its worth as a key backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement. Bricklayers Hall is significant at the national, state, and local levels as the headquarters of the Montgomery Improvement Association from February 1956 (about three months after the organization formed and the Montgomery Bus Boycott began) until 1960. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had an office in the building, as did the Montgomery Improvement Association’s administrative staff: Maude Ballou, Erna Dungee, and Hazel Gregory. The building also hosted meetings and provided workspace during the boycott.

 

The building was constructed in 1955 by the Bricklayers Union No. 3, a local African American labor union that was established before 1900. It contains a meeting hall and offices on the second floor, as well as two office suites on the first floor that the union rented out. It is located in the Centennial Hill neighborhood - the most prosperous African American neighborhood in Montgomery between 1904 and 1908.

 

Bricklayers Hall was also nominated for its association with civil rights Attorney Charles S. Conley, Jr., who had his offices in the building from 1961 to 1965. During this period, Conley worked on several important civil rights cases. He defended the Freedom Riders who protested segregation in buses and bus terminals and challenged racial segregation in Montgomery’s public libraries and the exclusion of African Americans from trial juries. In 1964, he appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court as an attorney for four African American ministers who were sued by public officials because their names appeared on an advertisement in the New York Times that criticized the officials’ response to civil rights protests. The case, New York Times v. Sullivan, resulted in a landmark ruling that protected the rights of journalists and activists to criticize public officials.

The legal owner of the site is Ms. Anoo Kaushik. Her husband, Dr. Suresh Kaushik was the primary contact regarding the nomination. Alabama Department of Tourism Director Lee Sentell and Congresswoman Terri Sewell submitted letters in support of the nomination, as did Alabama State Representative Thad McClammy, who was closely involved in the nomination effort.