This story is part of the 小萝莉影视 series 鈥�DC Uprising: Voices from the 1968 Riots.鈥� Each day this week, we’ll tell the stories of the upheaval and tumult 50 years ago through the eyes of those who experienced it.
Video produced by Omama Altaleb
WASHINGTON 鈥� Ben鈥檚 Chili Bowl, which has anchored D.C.鈥檚 famed U Street for 60 years, has long been the city’s favorite spot to score some half-smokes after a night out on the town. But there鈥檚 a lot of history in those celebrity-photo-bedecked walls and unassuming Formica countertops.
The restaurant was the favored place to grab a quick bite to eat back when U Street was Black Broadway, drawing glittering entertainers to one of three major theaters in the area.
Later, in the 1960s, when major civil rights organizations set up their Washington offices a block away, Ben鈥檚 became an informal meeting place for leaders of the movement, including Stokely Carmichael, the brash 鈥� yet visionary 鈥� militant who led the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and coined the phrase 鈥淏lack Power.鈥�
During the riots, Carmichael helped secure special permission for Ben鈥檚 to stay open to feed activists and police alike. Ben鈥檚 would ultimately survive the post-riot decline and decay that plagued U Street in the 1970s and 1980s to become the D.C. landmark it is today.
More from the series, “DC Uprising: Voices from the 1968 Riots.”
- 鈥楨verything was on fire鈥� 鈥� remembering the DC riots 50 years later
- DC Uprising: An oral history of the 1968 riots
- Under fire: Retired police, firefighters remember 1968 flashpoints
- ‘The mayor saw it with his own eyes’ 鈥� a reporter chronicles 1968 chaos
- After the riots, an activist on trial
- How Ben鈥檚 Chili Bowl survived the 1968 riots to become a DC landmark (VIDEO)
- Shattered lives, unanswered questions 50 years after the riots
- Small DC church survived the riots. But then came the wrecking ball. Finally, a rebirth
- Then & Now: Powerful images show 1968 riot damage and rebuilt DC neighborhoods
