water fountain Archives - The Race Card Project

S-h-h-h-h! They will bite your ears off!

July 22, 2014 1950, Austin, bite your ears, Diana Vicars, gas station, TX, water fountain, White girl, white only

Diana Vicars
Austin, TX

These were the words my mother said to me in 1950 when I read out loud the sign over a water fountain at a gas station during a car trip from Texas to Florida. I was six and a begining reader. Dehydrated from car sickness, I lived for the few and far between gas stations where I could get a drink of water. I saw the words ‘WHITES ONLY’ on sign above the drinking fountain and read them out loud. The full understanding of racism washed over me. If the world wasn’t safe or kind to a little black girl something was terrably wrong a wasn’t really safe for little white girls like me.

A child knows when injustice exists

September 18, 2013 1953, child, drinking fountain, FL, injustice, Ocean Ridge, Rob Jones, Tampa, water fountain

Rob Jones
Ocean Ridge, FL

I remember as a 6 year old in down town Tampa in 1953, having seen colored drinking fountains and bathrooms for the first time, that it was not right.

Drank from the wrong fountain: white.

September 18, 2013 1950's, 1960's, Arlington, drank, Ty Cooper, VA, water fountain, white

Ty Cooper
Arlington, VA

I was born (1950) into a family of sharecroppers in eastern NC. We lived one mile from the nearest road. I was starting school soon, so my mom paid a friend to take us to town to get my preschool health check. Sitting in the waiting room, I noticed people walking up to a device, pressing a button, and leaning over to drink water. (We did not have indoor plumbing at home; nor did we have TV, so I had never seen people drink water this way.) Curious, I decided to check it out for myself. My mother was preoccupied with my infant sibling in her arms. I slid out of my chair and raced over to the fountain to get a drink of water. Moments after I began to drink, there was a commotion. I looked around and observed disapproving frowns. My mom raced over to the fountain to pull me away. “He’s just a kid. He doesn’t know any better.” That’s the day I became aware of the concept of segregation.

1953: water from colored fountain wasn’t.

July 23, 2013 1953, colored water fountain, James William Gaynor, New York, NY, water fountain

James William Gaynor
New York, NY

Don’t drink out of THAT fountain!

June 27, 2013June 27, 2013 AK, Alice Lynch, colored, Houston, Jonesboro, line, segregation, separate but equal, water fountain

Alice Lynch
Jonesboro, AK

This is what my father said when I ran up to the water fountain with no line in the big downtown Houston department store. I was small enough not to see the sign above it that read “Colored”, but old enough to read it when he grabbed my arm harshly and pointed up to it. “But, Daddy, it’s clear like this water!” I guess that point was lost on him. It was never lost on me. I didn’t understand separate but equal things, and this turned out to be one of many I’d witness as a child.

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