December 18, 2011

Approximately two years before the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) verdict, which made segregation legal in the United States, was handed down, official segregation was practiced in the Washington County town of Brentwood. This 1894 photograph shows a man and boy standing in the doorway of the local train depot in front of a sign reading, “Waiting Room for White Passengers.” Such signs were still posted well into the 1960s.