Some PBS documentary has her on there claiming that she wasn’t allowed to go inside restaurants in the 70’s and 80’s. I was alive during that time and visited a lot of places, and never saw a place where blacks were excluded. I am not buying a word of it, but perhaps someone can set me straight?
In the early 70’s? Yeah, that’s certainly possible whether or not it was legal.
Not so plausible or likely in the 80’s - however, even if it’s illegal, there certainly are establishments that can make someone feel extremely unwelcome or even threatened. Bigots do exist.
Whether Jackie’s alleged incidents are true or not would require more information to determine.
It’s not unheard of. From the New York Times of May 25, 1994, “Denny’s, a national restaurant chain, agreed today to pay more than $54 million to settle lawsuits filed by thousands of black customers who had been refused service or had been forced to wait longer or pay more than white customers.” [bolding added]
And from the New York Times of May 4, 2004, “A civil rights investigation found that black diners at Cracker Barrels in seven Southern states were routinely given tables apart from whites, seated after white customers who arrived later, and given inferior service, the department said in announcing the settlement.”
They aren’t going to put a sign on the door. They will just ignore you until you get the message that “your kind” isn’t welcome in their establishment.
What is never told in the Denny’s case, is these weren’t just any blacks that were being refused, but usually rowdy teenagers who would come in, order up, and leave without paying. The typical scam would go like this: 3 or 4 would come in and ask for a large table as they were "expecting friends. They would order a huge amount of food. Pretty soon the “friends” would start arriving, and in the confusion, the 3 or 4 originals would one by one slip out. When the bill came, the server would be met with a chorus lf “I didn’t order this, I ain’t paying for it” and the restaurant would wind up eating the food costs. After a while, you are faced with either putting up with it and losing money or getting sued.
As far as Cracker Barrel is concerned, WTF do you expect? It IS called Cracker Barrel.
Among others. The restaurant did certainly discriminate against black teenagers, but they weren’t the only victims. Other complaints were brought by college students and members of the Secret Service. To try to brush off the restaurant’s discrimination as a reasonable business decision is indefensible.
I’d expect them to obey the law.
Yeah, I think that was a joke.
:smack:
Right over my head. I think it’s time for bed,
I have to ask for a cite, cause I’d really like to know how you came up with this. From a Denny’s press release before they settled, perhaps? I think it is a terrible mischaracterization of the facts of the case.
There were several lawsuits filed against Dennys, but most of them were consolidated into a class action suit called Dyson v Dennys. Dyson was one of the six African-American secret service officers who were refused service in Annapolis. The other major claimant was a Federal judge from Houston who said he and his wife were peppered with racial taunts while waiting for their food. Among the others…In San Jose, a group of African-American customers were told they’d have to pay a cover charge and prepay for their meals. In Syracuse, eight Asian students were refused service, chased from the building by security guards, and brutally beaten in the parking lot. In all, the class encompassed more than 4300 separate claims. The idea that the bulk of the plaintiffs were rowdy teenagers is just bunk.
The Justice department concluded that these were not isolated incidents, but “reflected a pervasive attitude of discrimination that permeated Denny’s management.” Among the witnesses who testified were former managers who described how part of their training dealt with how to deal with the problem of too many black customers in the restaurant, what they called a “blackout.” Among the strategies were to keep black parties waiting, tell them no seats were available, or tell them the restaurant was closing. They were also advised to seat black customers away from the exits because they had a tendency to leave without paying, and to seat them in less visible areas of the restaurant. Some stores kept logs of how many minority customers they had.
Dennys denied a pattern of discrimination, making claims similar to those that **HappyWanderer **offered above, or in the more egregious cases saying that the behavior reflected rogue employees rather than corporate policy. But in the end, they settled this case for more than $50 million.
Back to the OP…This all took place in the early 1990s, and there was a similar case against the Shoneys chain. If this stuff was pervasive in the 1990s, I have no problem believing there were worse and more widespead problems at restaurants in the 1970s and 1980s.
Although the thread title says “denied service,” the OP is more specific: “Some PBS documentary has her on there claiming that she wasn’t allowed to go inside restaurants in the 70’s and 80’s.”
Presumably this would imply either a posted sign or someone at the door deciding who does and does not enter. Are there examples of this level of service denial?
I saw it in Louisiana in the 80’s. No signs, just runarounds and static at the door. Sometimes it was outright overt. I once walked into a bar and grill type place with a black friend and this redneck bouncer came over and said “We can serve YOU but YOU need to get your black ass out of here.”
There were always certain places (especially bars) which were generally acknowledged as “redneck” joints unfriendly to blacks. Yes it was illegal, but I don’t think the cops cared much. Even if they were called, the owner would just say the black person had been causing trouble (ala Denny’s) and haf the time the black guy would end up getting arrested.
I saw “whites only” signs in the very late 60’s.
I’ve been to places with a black friend when his service was noticeable different from mine (I’m white). To be fair, that has happened with various other groups too. Like waiters seem to forget to bring the kids food a lot.
I’ve been to “all black” places (night clubs and restaurants) that I eventually left because nobody would wait on me.
One friend was told at a barber shop (in the late 80’s), “I just can’t cut that nappy hair, you’re going to have to go someplace else.”
While flat out refusals of service are probably rare, more subtle discrimination is everywhere, I think. The whole institutional racism in the Denny’s was pretty shocking though.
Depends on where you are. As a gay, white couple we have certainly experienced discrimination at our local Denny’s. Their staff and clientele are primarily Hispanic. We’ve never had to pay more (I’m not even sure how a Denny’s would go about doing that) but we’ve waited longer and had poorer service numerous times.
I have darkish skin but I’m not black. In the 90’s I went to an establishment in the upper west (not a restaurant) to buy something and was told, “I don’t know what you are, but get back in your vehicle and keep driving.”
My ex-wife and my sister were both long-time waitresses, sister at Red Lobster for 9 years, and the ex, oddly enough, at Cracker Barrel for at least that long. As far as I know, she’s still there. Neither one discriminated against blacks, to my knowledge, but were very unhappy to have to serve a black party. To hear them tell it, they almost always got stiffed on the tip. For the record, I’ve never waited tables, so I don’t know if this is true or not, thus adding nothing to the pool of knowledge. Just sayin’.
I saw the documentary. Kersee says that while traveling with her high school track team, there were restaurants that would let them order food but they were not allowed in; they would have to eat on the bus. She also said that there the predominately white schools that they competed against who would not come to their school.
She graduated high school in '79, which means she would have been talking about the late 70s. If it’s accepted that there were racists and bigots operating businesses in the 60s, why would it be so unbelievable for someone to encounter them in the 70s?
We still have one of these bars in my neighborhood. Shameful to me, but they seem proud of being bigots.
I lived in southern MS. from '72 through '75 and late '78 through '79. Segregation was not overt, but it certainly existed. Black people had their own part of town, for the most part anyway. It was extremely rare to see a black person in a cocktail lounge or ‘sit down’ restaurant. I don’t recall ever seeing any confrontation, but blacks who bucked the system were likely to be pointedly ignored. The black community had thier own places to go. A black friend once took me into a black club, everything was fine, I was welcome and treated like any other customer. Later I stopped at the club by myself. Things were a bit cool, but nothing was said to me. I got into a game of, call your shot, 8 ball, w/ a small wager on the table. I won the game, as I recall I had pointed my cue at the pocket before sinking the 8. My opponent immediately stated that I hadn’t called the shot. When I started to protest, he lifted his shirt to expose the butt of a pistol, the place had gone quiet. I looked around and everybody but him was looking the other way. I quickly finished my drink and left.
What goes around, comes around.
As a point of information, that doesn’t really matter. Obviously restaurants that discriminate against black people perceive some financial interest in doing so. But the law forbids it, and that’s that. Personally, I run a business where I serve the public, and I’ve noticed that young black customers have a disproportionate tendency to try and skip out on their bill. But that’s not a legal excuse for discrimination. You just deal with the problem in a nondiscriminatory way. In my business, I started requiring a credit card up front from everyone, black or white, young or old.
Just require a credit card up front from all large groups of any race. Problem solved without any discrimination.
Hell, I’m white and it happened to me once in 2000 in some hardcore Chinese restaurant in SFO- they basically pretended I wasn’t there for five minutes until I left.