When Tyrone Williams and Chauntyll Allen brought it to the manager’s attention as a lynching, he told them it was a public execution.
Chauntyll Allen, left, and Tyrone Williams outside of Joe's Crab Shack during a press conference on March 10.
UpTakeVideo / Via youtube.com
A Joe's Crab Shack restaurant in Minnesota has come under fire after two diners noticed that one of the photos attached to top of their table depicted a crowd of white people observing the hanging of a black man.
Tyrone Williams and Chauntyll Allen went to Joe's Crab Shack in Roseville, Minnesota on Thursday to celebrate a birthday when they noticed a photo attached to their table.
The image appears to show a crowd of white people observing the hanging of at least one black person. The caption at the bottom of the photo reads, "Hanging at Groesbeck, Texas on April 12, 1895."
Across the top of the photo is text inside of a speech bubble that reads, "All I said was, 'I don't like the gumbo!'" implying that the man was being hanged for the comment he made about the food.
When Williams posted the image to Facebook, he described it as a lynching.
Image provided by Minneapolis NAACP
In a press conference held the next day outside the restaurant, Williams said that the Joe's Crab Shack manager was understanding and apologetic in his response, and added that he would work to remove the table as soon as possible.
After they left the restaurant, Williams and Allen called the Minneapolis NAACP; their close friend, Nekima Levy-Pounds, is the chapter president.
Levy-Pounds told BuzzFeed News that they sounded "distraught" on the phone, and had told her they'd lost their appetites after seeing the photo.
Allen said the manager called back after they left the restaurant and tried to clarify that the photo depicted a public execution, not a lynching.
She then informed him of the history of lynchings in the United States, and how black Americans were often falsely accused of small crimes to justify the "glorified image" of their deaths.
"These tables are uniquely made," Levy-Pounds said, "so it shows that there was some intentionality on the part of the person who designed them."
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1pBRloG
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