May 13, 1959 - Barclay's Motel

Human Rights a Day

“Coloured” Albertan is refused hotel room.On May 13, 1959, a young man trying to reach a friend phoned Barclay’s Motel in Calgary, only to be told, “We don’t allow coloured people here.” What the hotel didn’t know was that this Mr. King was president and chairman of the grievance committee of the Alberta Association for the Advancement of Coloured People in Calgary. When King and a friend dropped into the motel an hour later, he was refused a room for the same reason. Later, the hotel owner would claim it was because staff had noted King’s Calgary license plate and concluded he wasn’t really a traveler. King went to court for being “deprived of his lawful right to accommodation.” He claimed damages of $500 for “humiliation, indignity and insult.” But on May 4, 1960, the judge found that Barclay’s Motel was not an inn because it did not sell food – and therefore didn’t fall under rules dictated by the Innkeepers Act of Alberta. He also ruled that because King was not a traveler – he was there merely to investigate – the facility had no legal obligation to give him a room. On February 14, 1961, the Alberta Court of Appeal came to the same conclusion.