My girlfriend Mary and I were travelling down to Columbus Georgia one fine fall day. It was a long trip from D.C. all the way to southwestern Georgia and we weren’t in any big hurry, it being a fine fall day with the sun shining and a soft gentle breeze blowing, so we wanted to enjoy the drive.

We were travelling the byways of America, along the Atlantic coast and stopping when we felt like it. Somewhere in rural South Carolina we stopped for some gas and a pee break. While I filled up the car, she went to get the restroom key to use the facilities. I was still in the station paying for the gas when Mary came in and said I had to see something. Around the back of the station, we went and low and behold there is a sign over the restrooms the read, in big bold letters WHITES ONLY. Me being a Yankee born and bred I was kinda taken aback.

I went a little further back and found a tree to pee on and when I was done, I went back into the station and asked the nice young southern gal about the sign. It went like this, I saw the whites only sign out back and I thought we had gone back to the early sixties, and she replied, no its 1977. And then I inquired about the sign saying that the civil rights act had been passed around 1965 or so, and she said yes it was. Then I asked why the sign was still there and she said that they may have passed the law but that they hadn’t passed a law saying they had to take the sign down.

I asked her where the black people went to the bathroom, and she said out back by the trees. I fely a bit better, but not much. Somewhere south of the Mason Dixon Line they still lived in the 50’s and 60’s. We couldn’t leave fast enough.