A Black-Owned Hotel

Within the local community, one of the most successful entrepreneurs was Edward Berry. The Berry family came to Albany from Oberlin in 1856 so their children could go to school. One of their children, Edward Berry, attended school until his father’s death in 1870. At sixteen years old, Berry began working to help his family, walking ten miles to work at an Athens Brick yard for fifty cents a day and running errands in the winter. He worked as an errand boy and a restaurant cook before starting his own businesses: first, a Berry Brothers restaurant he opened with one of his brothers, then the renowned Berry Hotel in 1893. The hotel enjoyed great success, and despite the potential of losing customers, he did not refuse customers because of their race.[1]

Berry Ice Cream Shop, c. 1892. Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections.

While Berry’s restaurant was successful, Athens was slower to welcome his hotel business. Local merchants organized to boycott salesmen who stayed at the Berry Hotel. Decades later, during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, Edward’s nephew remembered his uncle’s spirited words to his critics: “I told ‘em that before I had a big hotel I had a little hotel and before I had a little hotel I had a restaurant and before I had a restaurant I had a lunch counter and before I had a lunch counter I worked on the road for $1.50 a day, and I can do it again.”[2] Berry’s willingness to risk his financial success over segregating his hotel showed his dedication to his morals and to his fellow Black community members, but it left him financially vulnerable.

Along with these troubles, 1893 began an economic depression in America that made Edward lose more customers. He was forced to take out a loan to pay his mortgage, but banks were unwilling to lend him money, either because of the depression or because of his race. He was saved when a friend loaned him $500 without interest. Berry remembered this kindness as the only substantial support he’d received in his career to that point.[3]

His persistence paid off. The boycotting merchants lost interest, and the quality of Berry’s hotel service drew in repeat customers until his hotel became a well-known success. While the community was unwilling to give Berry the opportunities to realize his vision, the support of his friend and his determination to work against his circumstances allowed him to succeed despite racial barriers that still existed. Berry was also active in his community. He was one of the prominent Black residents who supported the founding of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Athens.[4] Berry’s success as a businessman is one of many cases of upward social mobility in Athens county, and his financial success allowed him to give back to his community in turn.

Views of Hotel Berry, 1897. Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections.

Edward Berry entered the workforce during a complex time for Black Americans. The end of the Civil War and the resulting period of Reconstruction deepened existing race and class tensions. Legislation in the 1860s gave Northern Blacks the right to vote and worked towards greater inclusion of Black Americans in public life, but the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s saw push-back and Black disenfranchisement in the form of federal legislation, voter suppression, failure of unions and businesses to include Black workers, harsher penalties for crimes, and racial violence that was ignored and sometimes protected by the federal government. While the worst of this was in the South, many Northern whites were sympathetic to Southerners in the face of their own economic hardship and the loss of power over their workforce.[5] Despite this climate of continued deep racism, Berry’s business thrived and he became a well-respected member of his community.

Edward Berry’s success, and the success of businesses like his, carried meaning beyond the Athens community. Booker T. Washington’s book The Negro in Business, a book accounting cases of successful Black businessmen, was written as an encouragement to hopeful free Blacks across the United States after the Civil War. “It is because they have so often succeeded in spite of these difficulties; because I have observed in our business men the patience, persistence and willingness to learn from experience which is the hope of the rising race that I was never more proud than I am to-day that I am a Negro. I am proud and grateful to be identified with a race which has made such creditable progress in the face of discouragement and difficulty.”[6] Despite numerous setbacks, Black Americans could feel pride and hope by looking at their successful, resilient peers. Washington regarded Edward Berry as “one of those pioneers of our race”[7] and his story as an ideal

Berry Hall formal dining room, c. 1908. Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections.

image of Black financial success. Stories like Berry’s must have been powerful for Washington’s Black readers who aspired to start their own businesses. Though Berry’s hotel opened after the Reconstruction Era, the opportunities laid in preceding decades allowed Berry and men like him to open new doors.

Notes

1. Booker T. Washington, The Negro in Business (Boston: Hertel, Jenkins, 1907), 62-65.

2. Lerone Bennett, Jr. “North’s Hottest Fight for Integration: Bill Berry, Chicago Urban League head, says ‘If we can win here, we can win everywhere,’” Ebony 17, no. 5 (March 1962): 36-37. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=RNcDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=%22#v=onepage&q&f=false.

3. Booker T. Washington, The Negro in Business, 65-66.

4. Sally Walters, “Blacks Built Church to Serve Community” Athens Messenger, November 21, 1977, 6.

5. Eric Foner and Joshua Brown, Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction (New York: Knopf, 2005), 186-207.

6. Booker T. Washington, The Negro in Business, 18.

7. Booker T. Washington, The Negro in Business, 62.

Image 1: "E. C. Berry Ice Cream Shop," Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections. https://media.library.ohio.edu/digital/collection/archives/id/558

Image 2: "Views of Hotel Berry, 1897," Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections. https://media.library.ohio.edu/digital/collection/archives/id/997

Image 3: "Berry Hall, formal dining room, circa 1908," Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections. https://media.library.ohio.edu/digital/collection/archives/id/1000