Civil Rights: Discriminating Taste

Richberg's Cafe on U.S. Highway 11 in Enterprise, Miss., served customers Southern style: blacks entered and ate at one end of the establishment, whites at the other, with a partition in between. That type of separation was outlawed in 1964 by the public-accommodation section of the Federal Civil Rights Act, which applied to the cafe because substantial quantities of food and beverages served came from outside the state. But such new-found laws were not about to move Proprietor A. W. Richberg. When the Federal Government sued, Richberg simply renamed the cafe's white section "Dixie Diner Club" and added bylaws...