Jim Crow was built into the floor plan
When the Pentagon was constructed during World War II, its designers planned separate restrooms for Black and white employees. The separation was part of the segregated system of the time, not a later renovation. Instead of serving one workforce with shared facilities, the building’s plan duplicated them.
Removing the signs did not remove the rooms
Once the restrooms were no longer segregated, the physical layout remained. Facilities that had been reserved for different groups could serve the same workforce, leaving the headquarters with more bathrooms than a unified design would have required. The change in policy was swift compared with the permanence of the concrete and plumbing.
That is why a building can preserve evidence of an old rule even after the rule itself is gone. In the Pentagon, segregation did not just determine who could use a room; it shaped how much space the building devoted to providing it.
