Segregated Bathrooms and Cafeterias Installed Throughout Federal Government Buildings

Following Wilson's 1913 executive segregation of the federal civil service, physical segregation was installed in Treasury, Post Office, and other federal buildings in Washington DC — separate cafeterias, bathrooms, and work areas for Black federal employees. Black employees who had worked alongside white colleagues for decades were physically separated. Senior Black employees were demoted or transferred to segregated units. Civil Service positions that had provided middle-class stability to a generation of Black Washingtonians were stripped away. The nation's capital became a more segregated city under the Democratic Wilson than it had been for decades.