One scene showed a restroom marked "Whites Only" in the Pilot episode. I was under the impression that such segregation never would have been present in 1960 Nevada and, if it was, would not have been at the casinos which made (and make) their money by marketing to all. Anybody know whether my impression is correct or incorrect?
sharethe Moulin Rouge was the first fully racially integrated casino in Las Vegas. Here is some info about the place and a brief discussion of segregation and the ending of segregation in the Las Vegas casinos:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moulin_Rouge_Hotel
Wow, this so-called jumping joint closed after roughly six months? Sounds like the "owners" skimmed everything but the toilet paper!
"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?"
Watch the Gregory Pack movie "To Kill A Mockingbird". Major portions of the period film take place in a 1932 Alabama courthouse yet there are no signs by the drinking fountains saying "Whites Only" or "Colored Only". Very likely another example of Hollywood remaking history.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0056592/combined
Terry Thomas
* Director of Photography
* Unit Stills Photographer
www.imdb.com/name/nm1669504/board/thread/100119963
www.TerryThomasPhotos.com
If you talk to older black people who worked the south, or traveled through the lower 48, and asked them :Where did you go to the bathroom? They might respond "in the ditch". There were gas stations as well as restaurants that wouldn't serve blacks. If you were traveling blacks had their own "underground railroad" of places that they could stop.
Interesting story. I worked with a white gentleman from New York, who had gone to college in the late 1950's. In the summer some of his class mates took a drive down to New Orleans. When they were in a small town in the south, he saw a laundromat that said "whites only". He recalled, my mother taught me to separate my whites and my colors when I washed. So he just washed his white clothes.
juanmonge69...Now, that is too funny about the laundry story.
share
I have a tin sign, (red letters, dingy white background) my father snatched from a Maryland gas station sometime in the late 50s. It reads: "Men's Room Colored Only No Exceptions." It's fastened to my bathroom door and has often caused consternation to visitors. Oh, I AM black.
"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?"
@bradford-1: that is AWESOME. I had an encounter in the mid-90s with a black gentleman in South Carolina . I had been driving cross-country (from NY westward to San Francisco, along I-10 to Florida, then up I-95 - more or less, but I took a lot of scenic routes). We were both waiting in a Denny's Restaurant for takeout and we started chatting. I am a minority woman who is often mistaken for Native American, and in the mid-90s, there was a great deal of negativity and animosity toward Natives during that time, particularly in the Mid-west and southern states.
Denny's had just come out of a scandal regarding 4 black cops who claimed they were discriminated against in one of the restaurants. Long story very short, Denny's had to start posting disclaimers in all of their restaurants asserting that they would treat all employees and customers equally regardless of race.
I was telling this gentleman that I had often felt uncomfortable traveling alone and that sometimes I felt afraid when confronted with some of the racist jerks who are inevitably remnants in some places. He told me that he had marched in the 60s (at the time, he seemed to be in his mid-50s) and that he had learned one thing from those marches above anything else. I remember what he said to this day: "Young lady, you don't EVER be afraid of some racist jerk, even if that jerk points a gun at you BECAUSE of your race. You stand up to him. If he takes you down, you make sure you go down STANDING UP."
Sounds to me like that gentleman and your father had something in common.
neat . . . sweet . . . petite
It reads: "Men's Room Colored Only No Exceptions." It's fastened to my bathroom door and has often caused consternation to visitors. Oh, I AM black.I was raised in the segregated South (Georgia) and, although its along the lines of "its just as illegal for a rich man to sleep under an overpass as it is for a poor man", the law did mean that whites were on the other side of the segregated line and could not do business with 'colored' companies either.
Vegas definitely had a history of racial segregation through the mid-1960s. As another poster said, it would make an interesting subplot through many of the stories. Mad Men has handled the civil rights era pretty well, starting with Hollis the elevator man and now showing Dawn, a black secretary. Since Mad Men's timeline isn't necessarily in equal steps, if they go thru to Season 8 as is widely believed, they'll probably be grappling with the first black senior executive or partner before the show ends.
neat . . . sweet . . . petite
A while ago, I happened to mention the sign story to a much younger (white) colleague. He seemed to have no idea about Jim Crow laws or the civil rights movement. I guess he's about 25 or 26. Made me realize there's a coupla generations that grew up without thinking about or dealing with the "race question." Which I guess can be a good thing. Or is it?
"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?"
Well, while it would be nice to think that today's generations wouldn't have to deal with the race question, it is just not true!
Racism is well and alive all over and the fact that he didn't know what Jim Crow laws were, are rather a testament to the horrible school system! And quite dangerous to boot. If we don't remember our past mistakes, we are bound to repeat them!
Had I been told earlier that sharing a sense of humor was so vital, I could've avoided a lot of sex
who cares. that was then, this is now... people really need to get over it, stop all the word games and stop stirring up non existent racist crap... every race has been enslaved at one time or another. get over it and do something good for the planet.
sharewho cares. that was then, this is now... people really need to get over it, stop all the word games and stop stirring up non existent racist crap... every race has been enslaved at one time or another. get over it and do something good for the planet.
share