442: How Mahaboob Ben Ali fed the Civil Rights Movement

Mahaboob Ben Ali (1927-2009) came to the United States from the Caribbean to pursue a career in dentistry, but a life-altering elevator accident steered him onto a different path—one that would place him in the middle of the American Civil Rights Movement.

Ali was born in San Juan, Trinidad, to parents of Indian Muslim descent; both sets of his grandparents were brought as indentured laborers from India to work in British plantation fields. This migration introduced a mixing of Indian and Trini culture and cuisine, and a spiced palate that would follow Ali to the United States.

But while at the University of Nebraska, he had a harrowing fall down an elevator shaft and sustained a broken back. Ali took a temporary leave of absence to recover and then went on to transfer to four different schools.

He eventually moved to Washington, D.C. and graduated from the historically Black Howard University, and continued his studies at its dental school. But just as Ali found his stride again, the ongoing debilitating pain from his back injury ultimately led him to leave his dental program for good. 

To support himself, Ali took on many jobs, including waiting tables and selling real estate. From his eclectic eye and experiences in the district, Ali came across a vacant building in the heart of the U Street district and saw an ideal restaurant space, as the prime location in a rich cultural scene that thrived as “Black Broadway” appealed to him. It was through his purchasing and renovating the property that he met his future wife and business partner, Virginia Rollins, who worked as a teller at a nearby bank that he frequented often.

With his mixed Indian and Caribbean background, Ali found the local cuisine inadequately spiced, which he answered with his spicy chili recipe. Two months before he and Rollins married, they opened Ben’s Chili Bowl together on Aug. 22, 1958. 

The casual eatery became a pivotal meeting place for political activists and leaders during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, including Martin Luther King Jr.

King regularly ordered the chili cheeseburger, as he made plans for the March on Washington (for Jobs and Freedom), the 1963 demonstration of 250,000 people on the National Mall, where King delivered his fabled “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial.  

Ben’s was witness to and a stage for the hope and stakes leading up to the monumental demonstration. As the march’s founding organizers converged over chili, King confided in the Alis about President John F. Kennedy’s fears that the violence born from white and police retaliation seen in the South would reach the district and set the Civil Rights Movement back. King also spoke of his responding, unwavering faith in the movement.

The restaurant served lively crowds arriving in the capital ahead of the march. On the momentous day itself, the Alis checked on Ben’s early in the morning, drove to the protest before joining it on foot, then raced back to the restaurant to host demonstrators afterward. Virginia Ali credited the event with helping in the passing of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Acts in 1964 and 1965, respectively.

Then in 1968, someone ran into Ben’s and announced that King had been shot. After his assassination, the restaurant became a place of communal mourning. Soon, civil unrest ensued. 

Riots broke out on the city’s streets for four days, and curfews were put in place throughout the unrest. Ben’s, however, was designated as a safe point, and was the only restaurant in the city that was allowed to keep its doors open past curfew. It remained a late night spot and served its community, from protestors to public officials, until the small hours.  

Into the 21st Century, the civic spirit lives on at Ben’s. In July 2009, President Barack Obama joined the restaurant’s long list of storied patrons, and was among Mahaboob Ben Ali’s last.

Ali died on Oct. 7, 2009. He named his sons Nizam Ben Ali, Kamal Ben Ali, and Haidar (Sage) Ben Ali, an ode to their storied South Asian and Muslim roots. They all had the same middle name so that the restaurant would have a “Ben” as its successor, and carry on its name. 

After police officer Derek Chauvin was filmed killing George Floyd in May 2020, Ben’s hosted the Floyd family following the Commitment March on Aug. 28, 2020, also known as the March on Washington 2020. The restaurant continues to be a gathering place for activists and changemakers, like its founder Mahaboob Ben Ali.