Interview 5 with Allen Watson (Roger's Corner)

Allen Watson, a lifelong resident of Madison, Indiana, describes discrimination present at drugstores located in downtown Madison, where he and his family could not eat inside of the store and had to pick up their ice cream at the side entrance as opposed to the front.

***Transcript***

Allen Watson: My dad, he would have to go in to get the ice cream for us. He’d bring it out. We weren’t allowed to go to the front door at the drugstore. We had to go to the side door to get, my dad to get the ice cream and bring it out to us, and yeah, the other drug store on Main Street, we weren’t allowed to—we had to go through the front door because I think that was probably the only door that they had. The other side door I believe was used for deliveries, and we could go in there, but as far as sitting down to eat at the dining room tables, you could not do that as an African American, but you know, later on things started to change at the drug store. You know, there were people that had gone in, and they would sit there, but they would not be served,but then, you know, they just kept going back and finally they did serve them, and this was back in the [19]60’s it was, but at the other drugstore, later on, at the other drugstore where my dad would take us to get out ice cream, we were able to later, like the other drugstore, we were able to go in and sit in the booth, but at first, we were not allowed to do that.