The only white/ colored signs I have ever seen in actual use were at a Kinkos in Harlem.

Just the way George Bush would want it.

Somewhere, a Republican is tearing up.

So denying the past will make it go away?

Or, am I supposed to feel guilty for something which happened when I was a little boy, over which I had no control?

BTW, you know who else blamed a whole ethnic group for the wrongdoings of just a few? (Godwin?)

95629: Damnit, my troll! Go away!

95629: Just the way George Bush would want it.

I went Godwin in 4, but you blamed Bush in 2; you win the thread.

Trains are neat.

Never, ever forget. We need these reminders.

This will make it convenient for the First Family

Back in the 80''s when they were renovating Rice stadium in Houston, a "Colored only" entrance sign was uncovered at one of the remote gates and they voted to let it stand. It's history, not a good part but.

tarmon: Somewhere, a Republican is tearing up.

tearing up...

In the same (albeit much lesser) category as refurbishing Auschwitz.

This kind of thing needs to be done, to remind the young'uns that the past is no place to live, and to explain why.

My commendations to the people who did this.

Useless without pictures (new window)

Obama is not 'black'.
He is Mulatto.
Get your dictionary out

As long as they don't start enforcing it, shouldn't be a problem.

yes, they had to segregate albinos from the normal folk back in the day.

There were still black and white drinking fountains in one of the department stores in the early 70's. My mom about died of embarrassment trying to explain why it was bad form to use the pretty shiny black porcelain drinking fountain. She was an advocate for civil rights but there are still plenty of Palin-Americans wandering around that would have an issue.

it's a restoration, it needs to be an accurate one. It had segregated entrances then, the restored one should as well. Obviously the segregation should not be enforced, but the building needs to be accurate.

bgarrett: Obama is not 'black'.
He is Mulatto.
Get your dictionary out

High yellow (new window)

Keep in mind the Holocaust Museum had replica oven doors built.

I've been to Dachau and find the replication of those doors horrifically tacky.

While it might be painful, historical representations like this show the truth (or somewhat show the truth) about how things were.

Most citizens are embarrassed about segregation but I believe that it's important for children of all cultures to see relics of our past so that they can better understand history.

People who lived during segregation might feel initial pains when viewing such sites but I doubt that they can deny the importance of such information being open and available for learning and discussion.

I refer that a historical site containing themes of segregation not house a US Postal Office. A Post Office is a public place for people to conduct business in - nothing more, nothing less.

tarmon: Somewhere, a Republican is tearing up.

Google "Solid South". Note that the Dems at that time when that station was built were the driving force for segregation. It was only the latter half of the 20th century that the GOP became more associated with the "Good Ole Boys".

The apartment building I live in used to be a hotel.

It still has the black entrances and there are two bathrooms for black folks, you can still see the word "COLORED" carved into the door even though it has been painted over.

They keep those bathrooms locked and people aren't allowed to use them for some reason or another.

There are some folks here of different ages who still rage about having to share a bathroom with somebody who isn't white. They want the good ol' days back.

Crudbucket: Bohemian: There were still black and white drinking fountains in one of the department stores in the early 70's. My mom about died of embarrassment trying to explain why it was bad form to use the pretty shiny black porcelain drinking fountain. She was an advocate for civil rights but there are still plenty of Palin-Americans wandering around that would have an issue.

Ah...so she was all for it so long as no one else found out.

Go mom.

Nah, she was just a drunkard. Stores wouldn't bother to color code their porcelain.

Bravo, Bravian! Beat me to it.

/would've captioned: "Mmmmm, that takes me back..."

lasercannon: I firmly believe in the policy of keeping the coloreds and the whites separate

//When doing my laundry

With separate but equal facilities and equipment for washing? Laundry Apartheid! Laundry Apartheid! Laundry Apartheid!

I guess some folks like the original conception of Colonial Williamsburg?

Veteran of the Cola Wars: It still has the black entrances and there are two bathrooms for black folks, you can still see the word "COLORED" carved into the door even though it has been painted over.

They keep those bathrooms locked and people aren't allowed to use them for some reason or another.


So colored people have access to NO restrooms in your apartment building anymore? That's just terrible. I'd move.

DagnyFarkstofeles: Keep in mind the Holocaust Museum had replica oven doors built.

I've been to Dachau and find the replication of those doors horrifically tacky.

Arbiet macht....fry ?

reddot:
bgarrett: Obama is not 'black'.
He is Mulatto.
Get your dictionary out

High yellow (new window)

I believe they now prefer the term "multiracial".

IonBeam2: Our society isn't entirely done with such ideas as separate but equal. The phrase has cropped up again in debates about same-sex marriage. As some states consider legalizing such civil unions that would be "all but marriage," pro-gay marriage forces have argued that this would be functionally equivalent to separate but equal, a wall between two types of people erected merely to maintain a social animus.

I wonder what would happen if a homosexual activist said that to a black person's face.

Honestly, it depends on who that person is. If it is the average African American then they probably wouldn't have a positive thing to say. However, the leaders of the NAACP have rallied against Proposition 8 in California. Though they are not advocating for Gay marriage, they do not approve of legal efforts to deny rights.

"Proposition 8 subverts ... basic and necessary safeguards, unjustly putting all Americans, particularly vulnerable minorities, at risk of discrimination by a majority show of hands." (new window)

This reminds me of a time I told an old roommate about some land my extended family has, and how it has some slave-dug trenches from the pre-Civil War era. He looked at me like I was David Duke.

/extended family bought the land in the 1940's.
//he also said that when he was traveling in the South he was refused service by a restaurant because his family was Jewish. I doubt his story, I bet it was because many restaurants in the South are not open every day. Some people just want to hate the South. It's like they have prejudged them, with some sort of... prejudice.
///If they were being antisemitic, he really should've shouted the restaurant's name from the rooftops.

reddot: Useless without pictures (new window)

Your #14 photo was still hanging on the Grayhound station when I moved to town.

Restored train station in Virginia features White and Colored Coloured entrances

FTFY

/coloured?
//red? orange? wut?

in '86

Typical online idiots here.

Look, idiots, segregation after emancipation of the slaves was NOT wanted by the rich people, but instead by the majority of the voters--the white working class. That was how the majority maintained their wages and their social capital. The upper class only created the skin color caste back the in the late 1600s in order to divide the poor whites and the blacks who were threatening to revolt against the upper class (they burned jamestown to the ground in the 1670s).

Once the white majority had accomplished segregation and the upper class had terminated mass immigration in the early 1920s because they were afraid of importing the economic leftism ideas that were sweeping the european working class, there then ensued the Golden Age of Labor in America. The upper class began to end all that in the 1950s with the civil righte movement.

So, I say all this in order to attempt to set aright some of the obvious wrongheadedness about jim crow etc. Jim Crow was what the white majority wanted.

And it has taken the upper class decades to erase the remnants of the skin color caste they created 400 years ago.

This is all about MONEY. Lower labor costs for the upper class. Nothing else. Diversity is strength for the upper class and weakness for the working class.

You may now resume your regularly scheduled pseudopolitical discussion....

LindyJohn: Veteran of the Cola Wars: It still has the black entrances and there are two bathrooms for black folks, you can still see the word "COLORED" carved into the door even though it has been painted over.

They keep those bathrooms locked and people aren't allowed to use them for some reason or another.


So colored people have access to NO restrooms in your apartment building anymore? That's just terrible. I'd move.

There is one set of public restrooms still open, for a building of about 300 people. No longer segregated. People can choose to use the toilet in their apartment or the one in the lobby. A lot of the older (and even some of the younger) white folks refuse to use the restrooms because they've been contaminated by blacks, and they might catch crabs, AIDS, or herpes off of the toilet seat. (Yeah, yeah, I know)

Random historical note: When this building was segregated, only whites were allowed to use the elevators. Everybody had to use the stairs, and this is a 15 floor building. Well, 15 and a half. There is a mezzanine level off of the lobby.

what racist trains may look like:

It's important for us to remain familiar with our past mistakes so that we can learn from them and not repeat them.

Leave it there.

DERP, er, everybody else who wasn't white had to use the stairs.

/Please forgive me, I need more tea.

The is tremendous ignorance about what segregation was, *where* it was, and why and *when* it went away.

By the time the Civil Rights movement was going strong, official segregation had already ended in most of the US north of the Mason-Dixon line. This was a significant contraction. In the 1920s, the "second" Ku Klux Klan was headquartered in Indiana, and yet its emphasis was mostly anti-Catholic immigrant. But throughout the US, most cities and towns were generally segregated to some degree.

Segregated towns had a white and black part of town, an official, white government, and a shadow black government that helped to keep order in the black part of town. Both parts of town had a strict social pecking order, often sectarian religious in nature. The black shadow mayor was often the undertaker, as that was one of the best paying, *respectable* businesses in town. As long as the black part of town kept a lid on things, they were generally left alone by the white authorities.

In addition to permanent residents, there were itinerant white and black people who traveled around, often as petty criminals and con artists, and both sides of town were inclined to keep them on the periphery, where they could do business, but away from the town proper. Over time this led small rural towns to be very distrustful of strangers.

Not surprising, much of the breakup of segregation also has its roots in Indiana, as that was where many parallel social challenges were being made, such as the sexual revolution. But south of the Mason-Dixon, due to a hard core group of "Dixiecrats", political and social changes were kept at arms length.

But the momentum was there. What had happened gradually and peacefully in the rest of the US built up so much pressure for change in the South that it was no surprise when it finally erupted.

The biggest push for change came from black WWII veterans, who had enough of such nonsense, and very stubbornly put their foot down and refused to go back to the old ways.