A $2 million renovation will begin soon on the Wells’Built Hotel, once the lone haven for Black travelers in segregation-era Orlando and now a museum where that history resonates.

In its heyday, from the 1920’s through the 1950’s, the 20-room, two-story brick hotel on South Street in Parramore rolled out welcomes to legendary Black musicians like Count Basie, Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and BB King; and athletes like boxer Joe Louis and baseball star Jackie Robinson. All were forbidden by Jim Crow laws and the color of their skin from staying overnight at Florida hotels with white guests.

The musicians played the “Chitlin’ Circuit,” a network of small venues including Club Eaton in Eatonville and the South Street Casino in Orlando’s Parramore neighborhood where rising Bl

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