“From Beloved Beacon to Forgotten Relic: Unraveling the Astonishing Decline of Howard Johnson’s Empire”
Speaking of bad public perception, at least among some, leading up to all this, in the late 1950s a franchise owner in Dover, Delaware refused to serve black people. This would otherwise not have been significantly newsworthy in the era, but Howard Johnson’s was one of the most famous brands in the nation at the time, and on top of this, most famously that location refused to serve one Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, official representative of Ghana. In the end, this prompted something of an international incident and an apology from none other than President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who also invited Komla to come have breakfast with him and Vice President Richard Nixon at the White House. As for Howard Johnson’s side, he apparently personally told the Dover franchise owner that segregation was not allowed in any Howard Johnson’s. But it didn’t stop there. In 1961 another black diplomat, this time one William Fitzjohn was denied service at a Hagerton, Maryland Howard Johnson’s, sparking yet another international incident, with this time John F. Kennedy being the one to apologize publicly.
This spurred countless sit ins, boycotts, and protests at various Howard Johnson locations, even one such organized by future presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in 1962- all prompting Howard Johnson to issue a statement that he and his company opposed racial segregation, and noting, “Where it has been possible to change the operation of our company-operated restaurants in the South to conform to our national policy of service without discrimination, this has been done.”
