Herbert Horatio "Hub" Dudley

Mr. Herbert Horatio Dudley was born on January 8, 1892, in Cordele, Georgia, to Clayton Dudley and Katie Dudley. The family of four which included his sister, Josephine, moved to Dublin, and become active in the community.

Katie Dudley was a teacher and early advocate for children’s education and public welfare. Because of her contributions, the first public housing project in Dublin for blacks, was named in her honor.

Clayton Dudley included his young son in establishing many activities which focused on addressing the need for commerce and jobs for blacks in the area. Herbert Dudley studied law and business which led him, at age 24, to be the first black appointed county official in Laurens County in 1916. As such, this event led to a public protest (Atlanta Constitution 8.10.1916 pg 11). One of the first businesses was C. D. Dudley and Son, Dry Goods, which became the anchor for the, then, unheard of “shopping center” of storefronts on East Jackson Street near the riverside. Over the next five decades in addition to dry goods, there would be a meat market, a barber shop, a restaurant, a bank, and in 1922, a funeral home, and a casket company. In other locations, there was a lumber yard, a grist mill, and a shoe shop.

Each of these businesses would be a response to a lack of provisions or a need for skills in the community, which provided many jobs and apprenticeships. In 1934, a cemetery was added due to lack of access to the “Cross Creek” cemetery in bad weather conditions.

A modern day “service station” was added in the 1940s to accommodate the increasing number of blacks travelling long distances by car. As it was located on US Highway 80, the major east/west route through Georgia, Dudley’s Amoco Service Station was a 24-hour operation complete with services for your automobile and a food counter with “short order” service. These were the days of lack of “public accommodations” as illustrated by the 2018 movie, Green Book. Dudley had also converted the original family residence on Truxton Street to be the “Guest House” with rooms available for the traveling public.

In the mid-1940s, the United States Naval Hospital brought military people to Dublin. To accommodate the black officers, Dudley contracted to operate the USO (United Service Organizations) location, hence called the “Retreat”. After the WWII efforts concluded, the restaurant continued as a public offering with food and entertainment featuring such well known acts as Rosetta Tharpe, Little Richard Penniman, James Brown, et al. In addition to a full menu, the Retreat offered a full Coca-Cola Fountain, Ice Cream bar, a doughnut machine, and a JukeBox. It also had a “private” dining room. This location on the main highway in the center of Georgia became a well-known stop on the way to everywhere on every trip for blacks as there were few other options for gas, food, or lodging.

The Georgia 4-H Club Camp for blacks was established in the early 1950s in Dublin’s southside and travel by car was greatly increasing. For recreation, Dudley built a skating rink on the site where the Dairy Queen on East Jackson Street in Dublin now stands.

There were several boarding houses but still no motels for blacks yet in Dublin. In 1957, Dudley began the construction of the 12-room motel. As a newly construction multi-unit motel for “discrimination Negros”, it was a first for this area. In December of 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, and the bus boycott followed. In 1958, Dudley’s Motel opened with much fanfare and promotion. Featured in the “Negro Motorist Green Book”, and the Amoco Oil publication, “Go Guide to Pleasant Motoring”, Dudley’s Motel, Retreat and Amoco Station were popular.

The civil rights efforts continued as Dudley, in January of 1959, was credited with achieving a high voter registration in Laurens achieving “3507 registered voters out of an eligible 7398”. (Pittsburgh Courier 01.17.1959) It was not until 1964 was the Civil Rights Act enacted; it “prohibited discrimination in places of public accommodation because of race, color religion or national origin”. The year 1968, when the Holiday Inn opened, marked a change when blacks became more comfortable with seeking accommodations at many of the motels or restaurants in the Dublin area. In addition, much traffic was diverted from the US 80 to interstate highway 16 as it was completed.

During the 1960s, we would see many students, entertainers, clergy, and activists at the Dudley Motel and Retreat Café. They would come for civic events, Negro League baseball games, religious conventions, and concerts. They would also come for less publicized events. It was here at the Dudley’s Motel and Retreat Café, that a small group of men including Martin Luther King, Jr., Andrew Young, Ralph Abernathy, Maynard Jackson and others, would come for offsite meetings to relax and plan for activities that would change the course of civil rights. The “private dining room” was the reserved place for meetings and reflection on the non-violent social change agenda. They came here with the expectation of no fanfare or publication; these were dangerous times. Ironically, in 1958, a lady from nearby Adrian, Georgia, Izola Ware Curry, stabbed and nearly killed Martin Luther King, Jr., in New York. Ten years later, a second attempt ended King’s life.

Herbert Dudley passed away in June of 1965. Today, the three buildings, Dudley’s Motel, Dudley’s Service Station, and the Dudley’s “Retreat” Café still stand representing a point in time which accommodated and supported a transition in our culture.