James Vaughn Paschal

News Obituary Article

ATLANTA: Paschal's Restaurant founder dies at 88

By RICK BADIE, CHRISTIAN BOONE

James Vaughn Paschal, whose Atlanta restaurant served the fried chicken that nourished the soldiers of the civil rights movement, died Friday from complications of heart surgery at Piedmont Hospital. He was 88.

The funeral will be 11 a.m. Friday at the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College. Murray Brothers Funeral Home is handling arrangements.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, who will be delivering the eulogy at Paschal's funeral, said his friend was an indispensable figure within the civil rights struggle.

"It [Paschal's Restaurant] was sort of the official headquarters of the movement," Lowery said Tuesday from his Atlanta home. "We would've been severely handicapped without Paschal's."

James Paschal and his brother Robert, who died in 1997, opened a diner in Atlanta decades ago on Hunter Street (now Martin Luther King Jr. Drive). In 1959, the diner moved across the street, expanded and became Paschal's Restaurant, a hub of the movement.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his lieutenants planned the Selma-to-Montgomery march and the Poor People's Campaign at Paschal's.

In 1972, Andrew Young, on his way to becoming the first black congressman from Georgia since Reconstruction, announced his decision to run at the restaurant.

When the parents of jailed student protesters needed a place to wait, pray and eat, they went to Paschal's Restaurant or the motel the brothers opened in 1967.

"If you were there on any given morning you could find a catalog of black leadership there eating, discussing problems, strategizing," Lowery said.

Said the late Coretta Scott King: "Paschal's is as important a historical site for the American civil rights movement as Boston's Faneuil Hall is to the American Revolution."

As businessmen, the Paschal brothers fought the status quo.

In the 1960s, "We operated an integrated facility in a segregated community," Paschal said in a 2002 interview. "On our license was printed 'for colored people only,' but we violated those city ordinances."

It was hard work, too.

"We both were working 12, 14 hours a day, seven days a week," James Paschal said in a 2003 interview. "It took that to make it happen."

Until recently, Paschal had remained active in the business, said construction mogul Herman J. Russell, his business partner.

"Even at 88, he would drop by every day to check on the quality of the food, and to see how the front of the house was done and the back was done," he said. "He was dedicated to serving the public."

Today, four Paschal's --- one on Northside Drive and three at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport --- operate in metro Atlanta.

Fried chicken still graces the menu.

"If you ask me, the chicken was pretty good," said Marian Johnson of Atlanta, the widow of Robert Paschal. "But people might say I'm biased."

The Paschal brothers never forgot about the importance of food. They made a name for themselves with their fried chicken plates, 52-cent fried chicken sandwiches, Southern sides and other entrees. Reporters for local and national media wrote about the restaurant's owners, clientele and food. Popularity spread. It helped that the brothers' businesses were all integrated.

The brothers also opened La Carrousel Lounge, where Atlanta's black community listened to musicians such as Ramsey Lewis, Lena Horne, Cannonball Adderly, Joe Williams and Dizzy Gillespie.

In the 2003 interview, James Paschal recalled that Paschal's chicken became so legendary in the 1960s that he once got a visit from former Gov. Lester Maddox, who at the time owned a fried chicken restaurant called the Pickrick. Maddox was a famed segregationist who in 1964 barred black people from his restaurant at gunpoint.

"There was a question about whose fried chicken was better," Paschal said. "Of course ours was better, but I never went to test his out."

Additional survivors include a son, Curtis Paschal of Atlanta; and a sister, Gussie Grant of Bethlehem, Pa.

By RICK BADIE

rbadie@ajc.com

and CHRISTIAN BOONE

cboone@ajc.com