Barbecue and civil rights
By Jim Shahin
August 2
Shortly after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Anne P. Newman, an African American woman, was refused service at a restaurant named Piggie Park, part of a South Carolina chain owned by avowed segregationist Maurice Bessinger. There followed a class-action lawsuit, Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises.
Bessinger argued, among other things, that the Civil Rights Act “contravenes the will of God” and thereby violated his constitutional right to religious freedom ...
Years later, in 2000, when the South Carolina legislature voted to move the Confederate flag from atop the statehouse to a less prominent spot on the grounds, Bessinger responded by hoisting a Confederate flag over each of his restaurants. That led to an NAACP boycott of his mustard-based Carolina Gold sauce, with Walmart, Sam’s Club, Harris Teeter and other stores banning it from their shelves. Bessinger said the boycott cost his business $20 million.
In the 1950s and ’60s, Bessinger put signs in his store windows saying that blacks weren’t welcome, according to the State newspaper in Columbia, S.C., which also reported that he distributed pro-slavery audiotapes in his main restaurant. He ran unsuccessfully for governor and for the statehouse ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/a-barbecue-case-that-helped-the-cause-of-civil-rights/2016/08/01/cc5edcd8-5203-11e6-b7de-dfe509430c39_story.html
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