A house of history

The epic Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s in Birmingham has been extensively documented, but the history of Birmingham’s African-American community prior to the movement has been largely ignored, according to Majella Chube Hamilton, the executive director of The Ballard House Project, a nonprofit located in the historic Ballard House on Seventh Avenue North downtown that is dedicated to unearthing this long-buried story.

“We’re a community of people that doesn’t know enough about its past.” Hamilton said.

Birmingham residents of all races need to know more about the way in which African-Americans from many walks of life worked together to lift up their community, start businesses and create a place for themselves in a tightly segregated industrial boomtown, according to Hamilton and her husband, Herschell Hamilton, a member of the Ballard House board.

“We are working to preserve, document and celebrate the voices and heritage of the African-American community in Birmingham and the metropolitan area,” Majella Hamilton said. 

And since 2009, the Hamiltons have sought to flesh out and share this story while using the Ballard House — built in 1940 as a live-work space for Dr. Edward  Ballard, a prominent black doctor and entrepreneur — as a community hub, teaching tool and important symbol of the vision and hard work of black people in the 20th century.

Jim Baggett, director of the Birmingham Public Library Archives, which is partnering with The Ballard House Project to collect oral histories locally, agreed with the Hamiltons that there is “a big hole” in the understanding of the city’s history and that “there are only a couple of good books on African-American life” at the library.

Majella Hamilton is a writer, editor and communication strategic planner who is pursuing a Ph.D. in U.S. history at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Herschell Hamilton is chief strategic officer of BLOC Global Group, a commercial real estate development and investment company.

He also has an important personal stake in the Ballard House.

His father, the late Dr. Herschell Hamilton Sr., was a distinguished general surgeon who opened his offices there in 1958.

The Hamiltons are particularly eager to research and tell the story of 20th-century black enterprise in the city.

“There is a long legacy of African-American entrepreneurship,” Majella Hamilton said, citing teachers, doctors, attorneys and other professions.

“We have learned and believe that this information will inform and inspire us today,” she said.

Herschell Hamilton, whose family bought the house in 1984, said it’s impressive that an African-American doctor such as Ballard was able to build a 4,100-square-foot house downtown in the segregated Birmingham of 1940.

“It is a symbol of the community’s enterprising nature and resourcefulness in the face of adversity,” he said.

Such stories of the many “amazing successes” of African-American business people can be powerful teaching tools, according to Herschell Hamilton.

“Our point to young people is that you have no excuse,” he said. “You have in your history examples of people who have done amazing things, and you can do amazing things, too.”

When Ballard moved to California in the 1950s, entrepreneur Jessie Perkins bought the house. In addition to a medical office, Perkins rented the facility to African-American clubs and organizations for meetings and events. 

“The aspect of community is central to the history of the Ballard House,” said Majella Hamilton, who noted the facility was one of the few open for use by African-Americans during segregation.

She said these clubs and civic groups, as well as African-American professionals, worked together in powerful “networks” that were not merely social.

“Their goal was to lift and help improve the community,” she said.

The Hamiltons continue this tradition by hosting events and presentations at the house — some of them part of the “Community Conversations” series.

A recent example was “Through the Prism of Hip Hop: Exploring Black Music as an Expression of Black Life,” a presentation in November by DeReef Jamison, assistant professor of African-American Studies at UAB.

Jamison, from Savannah, Georgia, said people associate Birmingham with the civil rights movement, but when he moved here in 2013, he realized there was “a whole community that helped shape and form” that movement.

“When I found out about the Ballard House and Dr. Ballard and this black middle-class and the role they played, I was very excited.” Jamison said.

Baggett, who attended Jamison’s talk, applauded the Hamiltons’ efforts to renovate Ballard House and make it relevant again.

“I don’t know of anyone else in Birmingham who is doing what they are doing: preserving a historic site and bringing people in to have programs on different topics,” he said.

The nonprofit continues to make physical improvements to the house. There are plans to redo the exterior, do some finish work to the interior and, eventually, add a new roof, according to Herschell Hamilton. And working from a master plan and some completed designs, the Hamiltons expect to build a large teaching garden next to the house by the end of 2018.

There will be vegetable gardens, fruit orchards and an herb garden, as well as areas suitable for events and classes, according to Majella Hamilton.

“It will be programmed with information in different locations about the history of the gardening experience in this community,” she said.

The nonprofit also hopes to take the “Community Conversations” events to some area middle and high schools this spring, according to Majella Hamilton.

She said the nonprofit and Birmingham Public Library are discussing the possibility of establishing a permanent collection of documentation regarding African-American life. The Hamiltons are also pleased that President Barack Obama, before leaving office, created the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument.

“I think that everybody in the district and through the community is excited about additional funding opportunities and additional visitors,” Herschell Hamilton said.

He noted that the Ballard House is not in the footprint for the federal designation but is a contributing structure in the Birmingham Civil Rights Historic District, as defined in 2004 by the National Register of Historic Places.

“We hope there will be benefits to the Ballard House from being in proximity to this district,” Herschell Hamilton said.

And the couple, while drawing on local African-American history, have a vision that goes beyond any one race or demographic. 

“We are a city with a very rich and diverse past, where people of all colors worked together as well as separately to build this city, and we are hoping this information will help everybody to not only understand but appreciate all segments of our population,” Majella Hamilton said.

For more information, including upcoming events, call 731-2000 or go to ballardhouseproject.org.