Published: September 03, 2008 10:55 pm            

OUR VIEW: Sign of a time gone by

The hand-scrawled sign read “Whites Only Water Fountain.” It’s a reminder of Southern inhospitality during the days of Jim Crow in a land where racial discrimination was not only accepted by whites but actually written into law.

But this didn’t happen in Alabama or Mississippi in the 1950s. The sign was posted above a drinking fountain at the Niagara Falls Public Works Department on Aug. 13.

A 26-year veteran of the department, James Curtis of 80th Street in Niagara Falls, admitted to police that he put up the sign. Yet, when arraigned this week, Curtis pleaded not guilty.

That brings us to the legally interesting part of this whole incident. While he told the cops he did it, Curtis said it was a joke and he meant no harm.

Some joke.

Separate white and black public drinking fountains were among the most visible vestiges of discrimination in the Deep South. Even when resurrected by a twisted sense of humor, the mere mention of the practice conjures a time and place most Americans would rather not revisit, to say the least.

But Curtis is being prosecuted under state hate crime legislation. That means he faces a possible felony conviction instead of simply a misdemeanor.

So that makes his state of mind, his motive, a determining factor. If a jury agrees with Curtis, that he was just playing a sick joke and not really attempting to display racial hatred, Curtis could conceivably be

acquitted.

This may be time for some Solomonesque wisdom. District Attorney Michael Violante says he’ll determine how to proceed once he examines all the paperwork on the case.

Were people offended? Deeply. There should be sincere and heartfelt apologies made by Curtis. After all, he already told police in a statement that he was sorry. “I meant it to be a joke but I guess it wasn’t funny,” he told them. Public service?

Perhaps.

Most of all, there should be giant helpings of common sense to go all around when it comes to resolving this case. A reasonable conclusion will go to show just how far we’ve come in handling race relations over the past 50 years.

        

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