Colorado Antique Store Sells ‘White Only’ And Other Jim Crow-Era Signs
The owner of an antique store in Colorado selling Jim Crow-era signs said she sees nothing wrong with it because “it’s part of history.”
NBC News reports that in a section of Antique Corral in Cortez are three signs that read: “Public swimming pool white only,” “We serve colored carry out only” and “Colored seated in rear.”
"It's part of history. And if you ignore history, you repeat it," the owner Cheryl Dean told NBC News. "I don't see a problem with them."
Dean added, "They have been in my store off and on. It’s not like I go and hunt these signs down. One person in 15 years complains, and it goes viral."
Nicole Shanks told NBC News she first noticed the items in the store about eight months ago. At the time she expressed her concerns over the signs to an employee and asked to speak with Dean to request the merchandise be removed, but she was told the owner was not available.
NBC News reports that after multiple attempts to reach Dean, Shanks finally returned to the store to confront her in person.
Shanks told NBC News she asked Dean to remove the “extremely racist” signs and other offensive merchandise including mammy figurines.
In a Facebook post, Shanks posted photos of the signs and wrote that Dean told her “to go back to England if I didn’t like it here,” according to NBC News.
Dean told NBC News she doesn’t understand why the signs would be considered controversial and that since the Facebook post she’s had threats to burn her shop down and has been labeled a racist.
However, Dean also told the news station that she has since sold out of the signs due to all the publicity and does not plan to purchase any more for her store.
Shanks told NBC News that she has a young daughter who is African-American and that the signs represent a painful part of our country’s history when racial segregation was legal and common.
She added that the items belong in a museum and not on a store shelf, telling NBC News, “We don’t need to profit off of replica Jim Crow-era signs."
