# Emergency shelters during segregation **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 6, 2014, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-shelters-during-segregation/694936 "2014-08-06T10:57:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-shelters-during-segregation/694936/1 "2014-08-06T10:57:32Z")
Engaging in my favourite hobby, reading about those wacky Nazis, came across the unsurprising fact that if you were a Jew you were legally barred from entering any public shelter during an air raid. Got me thinking…during the bad old Jim Crow days, or in South African apartheid, were blacks prohibited from entering shelters from say, tornadoes, hurricanes or other natural disasters, or nuclear fallout shelters? Or were there ‘separate but equal’ facilities where the whites only was a hardened bunker and the blacks got a corrugated iron lean-to? Related - if you have a private emergency shelter, is there any law saying you have to let people in (say, if a comet is about to strike) or can you legally lock the door and stretch your legs? ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-shelters-during-segregation/694936/2 "2014-08-06T13:21:45Z")
In the American South, the minimum requirement for making a place “segregated” was to draw a line on the floor with a piece of chalk. In theaters or sports arenas, all they did was place a sign in a certain section, designating seating for colored patrons, and it fulfilled the requirement for segregation. While there were entire buildings that were specified for white only, this was applied only where they had the luxury to do so and could plan the structure in advance. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2014, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-shelters-during-segregation/694936/3 "2014-08-06T23:12:44Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > In the American South, the minimum requirement for making a place “segregated” was to draw a line on the floor with a piece of chalk. In theaters or sports arenas, all they did was place a sign in a certain section, designating seating for colored patrons, and it fulfilled the requirement for segregation. Note that on the Montgomery buses (like the one where Rosa Parks was arrested), they had a small sign that was attached to the rows of seats, which could be moved back a few rows if more seats were needed for whites. (That is what actually happened to Rosa Parks – it was a ‘colored’ row of seats when she sat there, but more whites got on the bus and the driver moved the sign to make that row ‘whites only’ seating, and told her to get up and move, and she refused.) ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2014, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-shelters-during-segregation/694936/4 "2014-08-07T00:24:46Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > Related - if you have a private emergency shelter, is there any law saying you have to let people in (say, if a comet is about to strike) or can you legally lock the door and stretch your legs? For the love of God, sir, there are two seats! ---
**Author:** ![DingoelGringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@DingoelGringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DingoelGringo)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2014, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-shelters-during-segregation/694936/5 "2014-08-07T00:27:58Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > Engaging in my favourite hobby, reading about those wacky Nazis, came across the unsurprising fact that if you were a Jew you were legally barred from entering any public shelter during an air raid. > > Got me thinking…during the bad old Jim Crow days, or in South African apartheid, were blacks prohibited from entering shelters from say, tornadoes, hurricanes or other natural disasters, or nuclear fallout shelters? Or were there ‘separate but equal’ facilities where the whites only was a hardened bunker and the blacks got a corrugated iron lean-to? > > Related - if you have a private emergency shelter, is there any law saying you have to let people in (say, if a comet is about to strike) or can you legally lock the door and stretch your legs? I doubt any such let everybody in your shelter law exists because those who are into such things would be vigilent that it wouldn’t happen. ---
**Author:** ![DingoelGringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@DingoelGringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DingoelGringo)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2014, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-shelters-during-segregation/694936/6 "2014-08-07T00:30:58Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > In the American South, the minimum requirement for making a place “segregated” was to draw a line on the floor with a piece of chalk. In theaters or sports arenas, all they did was place a sign in a certain section, designating seating for colored patrons, and it fulfilled the requirement for segregation. > > While there were entire buildings that were specified for white only, this was applied only where they had the luxury to do so and could plan the structure in advance. In 1964 just at the end of that phase I worked in the portable toilet business in Florida and there were white only and blacks only portable toilets on construction sites. But it was all black guys cleaning both units. No white guys would have applied for the job! I was in management, not pumping poop. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2014, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-shelters-during-segregation/694936/7 "2014-08-07T03:01:05Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > In the American South, the minimum requirement for making a place “segregated” was to draw a line on the floor with a piece of chalk. In theaters or sports arenas, all they did was place a sign in a certain section, designating seating for colored patrons, and it fulfilled the requirement for segregation… Indeed there were many “segregated” diners where Blacks & Whites simply seated in different sections of the same dining room (or at opposite ends of the same lunch counter). > [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > …Related - if you have a private emergency shelter, is there any law saying you have to let people in (say, if a comet is about to strike) or can you legally lock the door and stretch your legs? There’s a reason why no home fallout shelter was complete w/o firearms. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2014, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-shelters-during-segregation/694936/8 "2014-08-07T15:24:40Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Note that on the Montgomery buses (like the one where Rosa Parks was arrested), they had a small sign that was attached to the rows of seats, which could be moved back a few rows if more seats were needed for whites. > > (That is what actually happened to Rosa Parks – it was a ‘colored’ row of seats when she sat there, but more whites got on the bus and the driver moved the sign to make that row ‘whites only’ seating, and told her to get up and move, and she refused.) Probably a stupid question; but, did it ever work the other way around? – few white passengers, lots of black passengers, more black passengers boarding: sign accordingly moved, at least temporarily, toward front of bus…? ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2014, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-shelters-during-segregation/694936/9 "2014-08-07T17:20:08Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > Probably a stupid question; but, did it ever work the other way around? – few white passengers, lots of black passengers, more black passengers boarding: sign accordingly moved, at least temporarily, toward front of bus…? By definition it had to work both ways. Otherwise, if say a buncha white passengers boarded, and then disembarked later, you couldn’t move the sign back. ---
**Author:** ![Ambrosio\_Spinola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de0a6/32.png) [@Ambrosio\_Spinola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambrosio_Spinola)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2014, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-shelters-during-segregation/694936/10 "2014-08-07T18:37:20Z")
During the recent unpleasantness in Gaza, there was apparently one rabbinical court which [gender segregated its bomb shelter](http://www.timesofisrael.com/women-barred-from-bomb-shelters-as-hamas-pounds-ashdod/), but this was later blamed on a single rogue employee and reverted. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2014, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-shelters-during-segregation/694936/11 "2014-08-07T18:43:01Z")
> [@vontsira](#): > > Probably a stupid question; but, did it ever work the other way around? – few white passengers, lots of black passengers, more black passengers boarding: sign accordingly moved, at least temporarily, toward front of bus…? > [@Habeed](#): > > By definition it had to work both ways. Otherwise, if say a buncha white passengers boarded, and then disembarked later, you couldn’t move the sign back. Sometimes though, “we’re-better-than-them” bigotry defies logic, common sense, practicality, functionality, convenience, and what sane people would see as “by definition”… ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2014, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-shelters-during-segregation/694936/12 "2014-08-08T04:48:41Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > For the love of God, sir, there are two seats! Couldn’t find a clip but, _“I like to put my feet up…”_