Atlanta eatery that served as civil rights-era meeting place faces closure

Paschal's restaurant, an Atlanta eatery that served as a meeting place for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and fellow leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, is scheduled to close its doors for good, much to the chagrin of community leaders and patrons.

Clark Atlanta University, which purchased the historic Paschal's restaurant, motor lodge and conference center in 1996 for $3 million, recently announced that it would close and demolish the 44-year-old establishment to make room for a student dormitory.

The decision by the university, which said it has been losing about $500,000 a year on the restaurant, has drawn criticism from civil rights and community leaders who contend that tearing down the soul food institution on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive would destroy a vital piece of American history.

"Paschal's is as important a historical site for the American Civil Rights Movement as Boston's Faneuil Hall is to the American Revolution," King's widow, Coretta Scott King, said in a statement. "As the primary meeting place for the leadership of the Civil Rights Movement, Paschal's played a central role in the transformation of race relations in America."

The historic 1965 voting rights march from Selma, AL, to Montgomery and King's 1968 Poor People's Campaign were planned at Paschal's.

U.S. Rep John Lewis (D-GA), who protested with Rev. King during the Civil Rights Movement and met with the slain leader at the Atlanta eatery, said he plans to work with the National Park Service to preserve Paschal's as a conference center, meeting place and educational facility.

In 1947, two brothers, James and Robert Paschal, opened the first Paschal's, a small sandwich shop. They later bought a house behind the restaurant and as business boomed, they built a new Paschal's in 1959 across the street from the first site.

In 1960, Paschal's expanded to include the nightclub La Carrousel. By 1967, the Paschal brothers had created a multimillion-dollar restaurant, nightclub and hotel complex with 140 employees. The Paschal brothers later branched out with restaurants at Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport. In 2002, James Paschal also opened a Paschal's Restaurant on Northside Drive.

However, when the Paschal brothers sold the original restaurant and hotel to Clark Atlanta University in 1996, they separated themselves from the establishment, even though it retained the Paschal's name.

"When we sold it to Clark Atlanta, we knew that they would be able to do whatever they wanted to with it," James Paschal told the newspaper. His brother, Robert, died in 1997, shortly after the university took over the original Paschal's. "But there are some obvious sentimental reasons why I would like to see it remain."