[chris]

Elliott Erwitt photographed a Black man drinking from a small wall-mounted basin marked "COLORED" beside a larger, modern water cooler marked "WHITE" in North Carolina in 1950. The stark difference between the two fixtures became a widely reproduced visual record of racial segregation in the United States. Erwitt made two exposures of the scene, including a second frame showing the fixtures without the man present.

Gordon Parks documented a similar scene in Alabama in 1956. His photograph shows a young Black woman in a white dress drinking from a cooler marked "COLORED ONLY" outside an ice cream stand. Accounts differ on whether Parks took that photograph in Birmingham or Mobile.

[annmarie]

i know i keep going to these race pics chris but i love them
and i appreciate you posting them the fountains remind me of
how my race were treated as well as some of the white people who suffered as well helping us defend the cause of equality
if you notice the black man is sipping water from a fountain thats
old and obsolete this is how black people were viewed along with
beliefs of being inferior whereas the other fountain is up to date
and beautiful it is stylish for its time.

[Orchid17]

For us younger folks who did not experience what it was like at this point in time,its a huge reminder of how far we've come and how much father we need to go.Lots of emotions run in this pic.

[güttsfükk]

when i lived in asia everyone had water fountains to use like the ones on the right

[URBANXENTITY]

WOW THE NICE ONE IS TOTALLY REFRIDGERATED

[mudge002]

good ol times :(

[Hotstuff]

just found these, irish were segregated too once

[fin_razelle]

[Margaret1975]

Those pictures serve to remind us of how far we've come and how far we've yet to go...

[Blewvane]

I don't understand why there were different fountains for the blacks, did the whites think that they'd catch black skin from them.