photo by: Creators Syndicate

Jamie Stiehm

Washington — When you sit down at Ben’s Chili Bowl, cofounder Virginia R. Ali is apt to greet you and tell you she is glad you’re here.

If you’re lucky, she’ll tell stories of her life that intersect with every chapter of the city since 1958, the year she and her late husband opened the restaurant’s doors in a segregated section in the old Jim Crow days.

Newly married, “I was willing to partner with him in a little restaurant,” she said with a laugh.

But yes, the nation’s capital was starkly divided that way, by color. President Woodrow Wilson helped bring Jim Crow to town.

Back then, there were about 250 Black-owned businesses in the thriving neighborhood, including the Industrial Bank where she found her first job, Mrs. Ali recalled. Duke Ellington lived and played around the corner. Stokely Carmichael was right “across the street and came here every day,” as leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

The first place Barack Obama went out to eat after being elected president was, of course, this center of Black culture and cuisine on U Street NW. Ben Ali’s pictures adorn the walls, along with photos of civil rights leaders, Virginia and their three sons, who now co-own the family business.

It is a striking gallery.

People who come in from all over the world for the famed chili sauce, “half-smokes,” and handspun milkshakes enter the beating heart and soul of the city. They come not only for the hearty menu.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. came in for “several conversations” with organizers planning the summer 1963 March on Washington. Quaker activist Bayard Rustin decided that marchers would get peanut butter sandwiches to keep their energy going.

“That was an amazing and inspirational day. You felt, change is going to come,” Mrs. Ali said.

And that’s just the beginning of her repertoire. In the diner, you glimpse Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond and John Lewis in younger days. Hillary Clinton held a fundraiser in the back dining room.

Customers are touched by the sudden sight of the gracious 90-year-old woman with a hint of a Southern country accent, whose porcelain skin and sweet smile is for everyone. Inside the diner, workers and regular customers call her “Mom.”

On a recent afternoon, Mrs. Ali welcomed a young couple from Lviv, Ukraine, over the moon to meet her. So was a man visiting from Chicago. She always asks where people are from. Some come from nearby Howard University, but every day and night is a different mix. The place is open until 4 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.

“I love people,” Mrs. Ali said. “I walk into the store and don’t feel anything but happy.

“I’ve served presidents, judges and people addicted to drugs, who didn’t have any money.”

In 1968, people started coming in the diner to say King was slain in Memphis.

“We didn’t believe our beloved nonviolent leader was gone. People sobbed,” Mrs. Ali said. Out in the streets, she said, raw emotions were expressed: “sadness, frustration and anger.”

The couple faced the riots that sprang from King’s assassination. Their section of Washington suffered deep damage that lasted for years. The diner stayed open, however, the only business that kept its lights on during the city curfew.

1968 brought searing events for the city and nation. Yet Mrs. Ali somehow preserved a sense of a “better day” after witnessing how the tragedy tore the city apart.

Her upbringing on a Virginia family farm in Tappahannock taught children how food is made and served to nourish family and community, creating bonding. The food on the table was straight “out of the earth” on a 300-acre farm.

“Three times a day, we sat together for our meals,” Mrs. Ali said.

And in 2008, that better day arrived upon Obama’s election.

“At my age, I didn’t expect to see a Black president. … A street party, dancing, lines out the door. Amazing!” Mrs. Ali said.

The promise and motto of the diner stays fresh: treating all comers well.

“You come as a guest and you leave as family,” said the general manager, Anthony Kirkpatrick.

How refreshing.

— Jamie Stiehm is a syndicated columnist with Creators.