“They
had black, well it was “colored” back then, on one side and “white” on the
other, and we had our place on the bus, we had our water fountains for coloreds
and our bathrooms for coloreds . . . we figured that’s just the way it’s
supposed to be.” -- Sheila Florence
My
article on segregation signage in the American South has just appeared in Design Issues. Although
"Jim Crow" signs have a complex history and are examined as a social
and semiotic form, I interpret them differently. These signs are an early,
if incomplete, example of wayfinding signage. Design historians have paid
scant attention to Jim Crow signs as artifacts, or as parts of processes or
systems, but doing so illuminates important aspects of the signs’ function and
appearance, examining how their style made them meaningful and authoritative.
Even more important, when recognized as a feature of communication design
history, they remind us how often design is used to enforce social regulation.
