# Desegregation of South: were any white businesses ahead of the curve in serving African-Americans? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 13, 2017, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727 "2017-02-13T01:15:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/1 "2017-02-13T01:15:02Z")
What I’ve learned from my study of history is that there are always outliers and surprises. Things that don’t fit the trend. So, although I’ve never heard of any\*, I’m curious if there were any of the following white-run businesses\*\*: • Business that were never segregated in the first place (I know there were some places that would serve African-Americans “out back”; I’m not talking about that). • Businesses such as restaurants that, in response to sit-ins, simply served the African-American protestors instead of refusing them. • Businesses that desegregated long before social or legal pressure was enough to force them to do so. Thanks for any information! \*In the book _Black Like Me,_ I remember the author saying the Catholic Church didn’t discriminate, and he was able to cash a check at a Catholic bookstore, so that might be an exception. \*\*In the same book, the author talked about businesses run _by_ white people _for_ black people in black areas, often in an exploitative manner. Obviously, I’m not talking about that. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/2 "2017-02-13T02:10:53Z")
Not exactly but interesting… I was recently listening to a podcast about Sears, which is a Chicago company but their catalogs had a far reach. The interviewee on the podcast, who was writing a history of Sears, pointed out that their catalog business was the perfect way for people of color to shop on equal grounds with white people. But also the Sears president from 1927 to 1933, Julius Rosenwald, was very active and generous in the area of educating black children in the south. His philanthropy started as early as 1906. > **[Julius Rosenwald](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Rosenwald)** > > Julius Rosenwald (August 12, 1862 – January 6, 1932) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He is best known as a part-owner and leader of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and for establishing the Rosenwald Fund, which donated millions in matching funds to promote vocational or technical education. In 1919 he was appointed to the Chicago Commission on Race Relations. He was also the principal founder and backer for the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, to which he gave more than $... ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/3 "2017-02-13T02:16:53Z")
I thought segregation was imposed by state law, so businesses didn’t have a choice? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/4 "2017-02-13T03:17:25Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > I thought segregation was imposed by state law, so businesses didn’t have a choice? No, segregation was mostly a matter of cultural sanctions. The laws did not ban blacks from using white facilities completely, but in certain specified situations. Bathrooms were segregated, e.g. Blacks had to sit in separate railroad cars, the issue in Plessy v Ferguson. They could use the same buses but only sit in the back, as in the Montgomery bus law that Rosa Parks defied. Restaurants in most places could seat blacks. Those who staged sit-ins at places like Woolworth’s couldn’t be charged with breaking a law against using the restaurant, other charges had to be found. Because of that there must of been many places where blacks and whites mingled peacefully. There simply weren’t two stores of the same kind available in the majority of small towns so blacks - and their money - could be excluded entirely. True, in many stores the custom was for blacks to use a back door or have separate hours or at least let white customers be served first. But because everybody “knew their place” and knew the consequences of defiance, actual laws were seldom passed. That way southerners could say truthfully they hadn’t made anything illegal. It was this attitude far more than the actual laws that made the Jim Crow era so insidious. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/5 "2017-02-13T03:39:41Z")
Thanks -I was obviously misinformed. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/6 "2017-02-13T04:08:09Z")
Back in the day, there was an herbal cancer therapy called the “Hoxsey treatment”, after its inventor, that was run out of American clinics which employed licensed medical personnel. They relocated to Tijuana after the therapy was banned in the States in 1960; the inventor, Harry Hoxsey, was admittedly a lout in his personal life BUT he hired and treated blacks and women on an equal basis with white men. > **[Hoxsey Therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoxsey_Therapy)** > > Hoxsey Therapy or Hoxsey Method is an alternative medical treatment promoted as a cure for cancer. The treatment consists of a caustic herbal paste for external cancers or an herbal mixture for "internal" cancers, combined with laxatives, douches, vitamin supplements, and dietary changes. Reviews by major medical bodies, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, and Memorial Sloan-Ketterin Curre... His main clinic was in Dallas, Texas, and many, many times, they would see black people circling the building, and they would knock on the front door and ask where the “colored” entrance was. They were told, “This is it - come on in” and then they would ask where the colored restrooms and drinking fountains were. Again, they were told, “They’re the doors that say ‘Men’ and ‘Women’.” I posted this link on another website a while back, and one of the posters said that all she saw on first glance was a classy, elegantly dressed woman. [http://www.proquest.com/blog/pqblog/2016/Vacation--Recreation-Without-Humiliation.html](http://www.proquest.com/blog/pqblog/2016/Vacation--Recreation-Without-Humiliation.html) ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/7 "2017-02-13T08:39:03Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Because of that there must of been many places where blacks and whites mingled peacefully. Tut tut, **Exapno**. Must of? I’m sure it was a brainfart because I know you to be far too intelligent a poster to have done it consciously but as this is the Dope I thought I’d better point it out. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Falchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e57/32.png) [@Falchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falchion)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/8 "2017-02-13T15:17:19Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Restaurants in most places could seat blacks. Those who staged sit-ins at places like Woolworth’s couldn’t be charged with breaking a law against using the restaurant, other charges had to be found. A number of states (or cities) had laws banning restaurants from serving blacks and whites in the same room. For example: Birmingham, Alabama: “It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at all which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment.” This [site](https://www.nps.gov/malu/learn/education/jim_crow_laws.htm) lists similar laws in Georgia and South Carolina. I know that’s not inconsistent with what you said, but I wanted to point out that there were all sorts of legal restrictions that would have interfered with being “ahead of the curve.” In addition to the obvious social pressure. (Curiously, Louisiana mandated separate ticket offices for circuses… which seems oddly specific). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/9 "2017-02-13T15:33:36Z")
Interesting, this is the first I’ve heard of the travel guides **nearwildheaven** linked to. Now I’m wondering if any white travelers made an effort to get those guides, because they didn’t want to patronize racist businesses, either. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/10 "2017-02-13T15:38:15Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > I thought segregation was imposed by state law, so businesses didn’t have a choice? > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Those who staged sit-ins at places like Woolworth’s couldn’t be charged with breaking a law against using the restaurant, other charges had to be found. That’s not quite true. Sitters-in could always be easily prosecuted under ostensibly race-neutral criminal trespass statutes. What is true is that the Woolworth’s sit-in in Greensboro was against _de facto_ rather than _de jure_ segregation; Woolworth’s lunch counter policy in North Carolina was based on “public custom” rather than a law. Broadly speaking, segregation in privately-owned public accommodations was a legal matter in the Deep South and a matter of custom elsewhere, whereas segregation of publicly-owned facilities was nearly always a matter of law wherever you went. The school district in _Brown v. Board of Education_ was the district of Topeka, Kansas, not a place one normally associates with segregation. Florida went so far as to prohibit “mixed” education _even by private schools_ in 1895. The segregated railcars in Plessy v. Ferguson were mandated by Louisiana law, rather than privately imposed. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/11 "2017-02-13T15:43:40Z")
Not a business, exactly, but Ingrid Bergman refused to perform at certain theaters in DC in 1946 after discovering they were segregated (some had integrated by then, bowing to NAACP pressure) and was heavily criticized in the popular press thereafter. ---
**Author:** ![Debillw3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@Debillw3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debillw3)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/12 "2017-02-13T15:51:27Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > They could use the same buses but only sit in the back, as in the Montgomery bus law that Rosa Parks defied. That wasn’t my understanding of the situation, so I’d appreciate some clarification if I could please get it. My understanding was that it was similar to how handicapped seats are handled on today’s buses–anyone could take any seat they want, but when someone more “worthy” of the seat got on, those who didn’t have the right to sit there had to move. That’s why, per my understanding of the situation, Rosa Parks was doing nothing wrong by sitting in the seat **until** a white passenger requested she move. It was that refusal to move, not her sitting there in the first place, that got her in trouble. Like I said, that’s how I understand the situation. If I’m wrong, I’d greatly appreciate edification. ---
**Author:** ![Falchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e57/32.png) [@Falchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falchion)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/13 "2017-02-13T16:29:56Z")
> [@Debillw3](#): > > That wasn’t my understanding of the situation, so I’d appreciate some clarification if I could please get it. > > My understanding was that it was similar to how handicapped seats are handled on today’s buses–anyone could take any seat they want, but when someone more “worthy” of the seat got on, those who didn’t have the right to sit there had to move. > > That’s why, per my understanding of the situation, Rosa Parks was doing nothing wrong by sitting in the seat **until** a white passenger requested she move. It was that refusal to move, not her sitting there in the first place, that got her in trouble. > > Like I said, that’s how I understand the situation. If I’m wrong, I’d greatly appreciate edification. According to Browder v. Gayle (which found such laws unconstitutional), the Montgomery bus law provided: > [@](#): > > Every person operating a bus line in the city shall provide equal but separate accommodations for white people and negroes on his buses, by requiring the employees in charge thereof to assign passengers seats on the vehicles under their charge in such manner as to separate the white people from the negroes, where there are both white and negroes on the same car; provided, however, that negro nurses having in charge white children or sick or infirm white persons, may be assigned seats among white people. I assume that the bus had a white section and a black section and (I would assume) that a black person could sit in the white section if (and only if) there were no whites on the bus. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/14 "2017-02-13T16:36:37Z")
The Montgomery bus policy was to reserve the first four rows for whites, and expand the white section if necessary. Blacks could sit in the first row immediately after the last white passenger (they could not sit across the aisle), and in any subsequent row. When a white passenger boarded and the bus was full, the “white section” would be expanded and the black passengers had to move (or even disembark if there was no standing room). ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/15 "2017-02-13T16:42:49Z")
Thanks for your examples! These laws, etc., are reminding me of just how much segregation sucked. Maybe it was different for white people then, but I can’t imagine feeling comfortable in a situation where people are being treated differently than I (I’m white). It also sounds like an extremely inefficient way to run society. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/16 "2017-02-13T16:47:06Z")
Until my retirement I worked at an industrial facility in North Carolina that was originally constructed in the early 1950’s. As we made modifications to the infrastructure and pulled out the construction drawings there they were, big as life, White and Colored rest room facilities and locker rooms. Luckily for us, about the time that segregation became illegal, women were entering the workforce, so it was just a matter of painting over the “Colored” signs and adding “Women”. I don’t know what use they made of the urinals, but women are resourceful, so I’m sure they came up with something. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/17 "2017-02-13T17:03:47Z")
My mother was a teacher in a Catholic school in La Grange, GA - the Catholic schools had either never been segregated or integrated early, and the public school districts sent observers to her school to see how on earth they managed to have an integrated school. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/18 "2017-02-13T17:07:23Z")
I was only half listening unfortunately but on a jazz program Saturday night the announcer told the story of a jazz band that was mostly black, with one exception. When the police showed up with an arrest warrant for violation of the segregation, they all fled out the back. There were laws and the police were enforcing them. Even in the north, there were such laws. When my parents were looking for a house in the Philadelphia suburbs in 1955, there was at least one, Yeadon, in which it was illegal to sell to anyone but a white Christian (I am not sure if Catholics) and the courts would enforce this. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/19 "2017-02-13T17:13:03Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > It also sounds like an extremely inefficient way to run society. Yes and no. Having black people stand and wait for their food at lunch counters didn’t present any efficiency issues. Nor did requiring them to sit at the back of the bus, or in separate compartments on trains (so long as you could kick them out of their areas whenever there were too many white people for the available space). Providing separate black schools was inefficient, but most authorities avoided that problem by failing to actually fund them. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2017, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727/20 "2017-02-13T21:33:20Z")
As it happens, the 1960 Nashville lunch-counter sit-ins are a featured article on Wiki today: [Nashville sit-ins - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_sit-ins) > [@Debillw3](#): > > …per my understanding of the situation, Rosa Parks was doing nothing wrong by sitting in the seat **until** a white passenger requested she move. It was that refusal to move, not her sitting there in the first place, that got her in trouble… You can now see and even sit in the restored Rosa Parks bus: [Rosa Parks Bus - The Henry Ford](https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/artifact/316872/#slide=gs-183327) I did it, and so did this guy: [http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/261615-obama-marks-60th-anniversary-of-rosa-parkss-bus-boycott](http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/261615-obama-marks-60th-anniversary-of-rosa-parkss-bus-boycott) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desegregation-of-south-were-any-white-businesses-ahead-of-the-curve-in-serving-african-americans/779727.md?page=2)