Steve Burns
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON – (WMAL) Wednesday marks 50 years since the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the ensuing riots in DC that lasted for four days and ended with nearly 1,200 damaged or destroyed buildings and 12 deaths.
Two business owners at the time, Virginia Ali of Ben’s Chili Bowl, and Rick Lee of Lee’s Flower Shop, remember a thriving African-American community that was largely reduced to ashes. It stayed that way for decades, harboring drug addicts and the homeless, until the opening of a Metro station in 1991. That followed a disruptive five-year construction project, which Both Ali and Lee claimed was more difficult to overcome than the riots. The area has since transformed into one of the city’s most sought-after neighborhoods. It is no longer a predominantly African-American neighborhood, but both Ali and Lee say they enjoy meeting new people and discovering new cultures.
WMAL’s Steve Burns spoke with Ali and Lee to recount their memories of the neighborhood, the violence, the despair, and the hope that followed.
