Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for January 21, 2019

Thank goodness we’ve finally put an end to white water grafting!

A great strip for Martin Luther King Day today. Thanks, JJ!

It wasn’t that long ago . . .

“…and drank from his in solidarity.”

I appreciate the comic – but I don’t remember ever seeing a water fountain in a Woolworth’s.

I hope that kid went on to a great life.

woopdy do

hair is the wrong color today

Here in Tulsa in the early 50s there were the signs at the front of the buses saying “Coloreds to the rear”. I remember seeing those as a child just learning to read when riding the bus downtown with my mother. She helped me read signs back then and later explained why that sign was wrong.

Well done!

We drove to Miami from Detroit for vacation when I was in second grade. We stopped for gas somewhere along the way. My big brother and I couldn’t figure out why there was this unmarked third bathroom door on the back wall of the station…

I thought that chapter was closed. But with the current administration, it appears that someone turned over a rotting log, and all the disease came back out.

Sadly, there are people who think those were the days when America was great.

I was raised in the west and when I went into the army I was stationed in Alabama. The first time we were allowed to go into town, I was in a store and saw the two drinking fountains. I went over and ran the water in one….it didn’t look colored to me. I had no idea what the signs meant.

In 6th grade, they instituted ‘busing’ in my hometown to force ‘integration.’ Government knows best, huh?

first time I saw that I went to the colored fountain just to see what color it was. It wasn’t colored at all, same old water.

The last great President this country had was elected In 2008. Many people will never get over the fact that an African-American could ever get elected President. The current person who occupies the White House has deliberately fanned the flames of racist hatred to the point where white supremacists feel emboldened to try and spread their vile sickness in front of everyone. I suppose the one good thing is that many are easily spotted and quickly recognized because they wear red baseball hat’s rather than white pointed hoods.

OMG, I was talking about this to someone just last week. In 1954 I moved to Louisiana & had no clue about segregation etc. I did the same thing as that kid only I am white & I drank out of the ‘colored’ fountain.

There are still old movie theaters where I live that have side entry for “coloreds” to enter that go directly to the balcony. They are now used to seat groups that have reserved the upstairs. No, it is not that long ago.

In the Future, the restrooms will be marked Men, Women, Gender Fluid..

It wasn’t long ago at all. When I was in junior high, a friend and I stole the signs off the water fountains in the court house in Big Spring, Texas. That was about 1958 +-, and they were never replaced. If you live there and wonder where they are- you can find them under the bushes near the entrance where the library was located at that time- left hand side of the door when you are facing the building. Might be some sort of historical value if they haven’t rotted into dust- don’t recall what they were made of.

Thanks Jimmy, we cannot be allowed to forget!

I’ve seen the dual water fountains but the “Colored” ones were not cooled like the “White” ones and were often much dirtier.

I remember all too well a family trip in the mid-1950s to Little Rock, Arkansas to visit close friends of my parents who had moved there. Thankfully, my parents could not explain away the “whites only” and “colored only” signs on the public water fountains and for entrances to the local movie theater.

Sadly today the President of the United States has emboldened those white supremacists and anti-Semites to come out of the wood work. And while the Republicans leadership is so quick to decry the bigotry of Iowa Congressman Steven King, they remain silent on the equally abhorent and unAmerican bigoted statements of their supreme leader Donald Trump. History will not look kindly upon this period where the Trump administration is quitely eviscerating civil rights and fair housing rules while it seeks to supress election turnout among “minorities” in 2020.

Fight the power!

I remember when I was a kid and saw restrooms marked ‘White’ and ‘Colored’. I couldn’t understand it because they looked the same. I thought it meant the restroom was painted colors and not white like the others…

In 1955, when I was five, my mom and I took a bus to downtown Tulsa to shop at Duncan-Browns department store. When we got on the bus I ran to sit in the back, as most children would. My mom yelled, STOP. When I stopped, I could see nothing, but people staring at me. My mom explained that there were seats towards the front. I didn’t think about this much until I was about fourteen and the Civil Rights Movement was in the news more. That’s when that moment came back to me and it was profound.

I remember seeing these drinking fountains for the first time. I was in third grade. I turned on the “white” fountain, then turned on the “colored” fountain. Very confusing. The water looked the same.

Harry Golden claimed the way to desegregate water fountains was to turn off the “white” one and put an Out of Order sign on it. The whites would get thirsty and use the “Colored” one. After awhile, remove the signs. Finally take down the Out of Order sign and turn the fountain back on. “This will have to be done gradually” [cliché of the resisters]. I actually saw this used at the Ross Ave. Sears in Dallas.

My father and uncle had a job at the Spanish Moss curing place back in 1934. Daddy was 4. Uncle Junior was 6.

The people working there gathere and turned Spanish Moss for stuffing in car seats. Everybody who bought a car was in on it just like those who bought cotton.Daddy and Uncle Junior carried a bucket of water with two dippers for the workers. One dipper was for Whites. The other was for Blacks. They all dipper out of the same bucket.

Racism. Insanity. Child labor. Complicity. A lot in a little.

I love today’s strip. Well done!

Times like that should never have happened. I was brought to respect a person no matter the color of their skin or heritage. It would be nice if everyone would do that.

“South Carolina my Mom and I made a trip to a laundromat I was looking around I spotted “L” men’s room and “Colored” men’s room. Also the same for the women. At the time it didn’t dawn on me what was going on. After several years, later it dawned on me. back, Iooking back, I shudder on how “stooped” I was….

Interesting listening to NPR today and hearing that in many parts of the South, the fact that slavery ever existed is being left out of text books and history lessons. The excuse for the Civil War is “states rights” and no one ever owned slaves. Sounds very much like the Holocaust deniers.

Is Arlo that old? I would tip he’s in his late 40’s – early 50’s, so he would have missed the “coloured” water fountains. Good idea for an MLK Day strip though.

White? Colored?? Shouldn’t water be clear???