I just saw a headline in a WW2-era Southern newspaper that caught my attention. It was carried in the November 16, 1945 edition of the San Antonio Register, and said:
Mob Threatens White Officer for Blocking J. Crow
Major Insists All GIs Be Fed Together in Mississippi Cafe
To me, the account that followed illustrates the utter irrationality of racial prejudice and segregation as practiced for so long in the states of the former Confederacy. It also illustrates the courage and determination of some fair-minded whites who refused to participate in the evil of racial discrimination.
The story concerns the efforts of Maj. Edward Gierring to transport a group of 25 soldiers, including two African Americans, from California to Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg, Mississippi. When the train carrying the soldiers arrived at Jackson, Mississippi, Maj. Gierring took his troop to the Jefferson grill for a quick meal. He had the group seated in various booths in the establishment. The major himself, who was white, sat in a booth with the two black members of his group.
Serve black soldiers? Horrors!
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