Racial slur once used to promote Route 66 restaurant

This week, the Daily Progress newspaper in Claremore, Oklahoma, began a series about two local African-American sports teams before desegregation — the Claremore Clowns baseball team and the Lincoln School state championship boys basketball team.

In the first part, former local athlete Gerome Riley talked about the whites-only, blacks-only era of the 1940s and early 1950s:

He recalls signs along Route 66 to promote the Grand Cafe in Vinita.

“The cafe in Vinita used to be the Grand Cafe before Clanton took it over. There were signs on the right of way and they said ‘Eat N****r Chicken, Grand Cafe, Vinita, Oklahoma’ all up and down the highway. I never will forget it. I lived in all that stuff. I remember a lot of it like it was yesterday.”

We’ll get back to that memory of a racial slur on a sign in a moment. There was no first reference to Clanton in the story, so it’s assumed Riley referred to Grant “Sweet Tator” Clanton, founder of the Busy Bee Cafe in Vinita in 1927 and, a few years later, the now-legendary Clanton’s Cafe along Route 66 in Vinita, Oklahoma.

I found no reference by any source of Clanton owning the Grand Cafe in Vinita. Clanton’s first restaurant was a couple of blocks southeast of the Grand, and Clanton’s Cafe sat three blocks east on 66. Perhaps Riley’s link of Clanton to the Grand Cafe is misremembered.

However, Riley did not misremember a sign along Route 66 advertising Grand Cafe chicken using the n-word. A photo of it exists in the Library of Congress’ archives.

According to other online data, the photo was taken between 1943 and about 1960 by a photographer working for the NAACP to document public signs “expressing Jim Crow policies and other derogatory sentiments.”

At one point, prints of the photo were sold by Historical Findings through Amazon. Its title description was softened to “Grand Cafe ‘Eat Negro Chicken’ in Vinita, Oklahoma OK.”

Another memory of the Grand Cafe came from Don Ross, a journalist turned politician profiled in the book “Riot and Remembrance: The Tulsa Race War and Its Legacy.” Ross, who spent part of his childhood in Vinita, recalled:

He heard old folks talk about the Grand Cafe, which once posted a neon sign: NI**ER FRIED CHICKEN. When he asked his grandmother what it meant, she said, “Racism is a cross that Negros have to bear.”

What exactly that chicken served by the Grand Cafe was, nobody seems to know.

The best source about the Grand Cafe was the late Marian Clark’s 2003 book, “The Route 66 Cookbook: Comfort Food from the Mother Road.”

In the book, Clark reported the Grand Cafe sat at 117 E. Illinois St. (aka Route 66) in Vinita, about where City Hall is now. Mr. and Mrs. W.E. Updegraff opened the restaurant in 1914. W.E. died in 1922, but his widow continued to run the restaurant until her retirement in 1947. Archie and Lenoe Wilson bought the restaurant in 1951 and ran it until 1969.

Clark didn’t include a recipe from the Grand Cafe in the book, nor did she mention the chicken described with that slur. Perhaps she was unaware of it, or maybe she decided adding such history was inappropriate. Clark, 83, died in November 2017.

The fact the use of the n-word on a public sign along a U.S. highway persisted into at least the 1940s seems startling — especially since that’s living memory for a lot of folks. Then again, Oklahoma has a tortured history with race relations. The Ku Klux Klan ran the state government for several years during the 1920s, and the Tulsa Race Riot remains probably the worst such massacre in the nation’s history (only the East St. Louis riots of mid-1917 are comparable).

Back to Riley. After enduring many humiliations during segregation, one might expect him to be bitter or pessimistic. But he said he remains hopeful about America’s race relations:

“It’s not as bad as it used to be. It’s changed a lot,” he said. “Racism is something that’s taught. Kids played ball together, they don’t know racism. As time goes on, these kids won’t know racism. They sleep together, play ball together, go to grade school and college together and in time, it’s going to be dissolved, but probably not in my lifetime. Kid’s don’t see color, they’re taught it.”

4 thoughts on “Racial slur once used to promote Route 66 restaurant

  1. I see nothing surprising in a sign of that era reading “Eat Nigger Chicken” – a type of cooked chicken dish. As for it being a slur, nigger only became one with time, being simply a corruption of negro. I recall in my childhood, “nigger minstrel bands”, and “nigger brown” [sic] boot polish; these names were merely descriptive, with no slur implied. Again in my childhood, “coloured” was the everyday word for negroid people – now inaccurately called “black”. Today coloured is considered defamatory – despite there being a National Association for the Advancement of Colored [sic] People. I have a woman friend who is dark skinned and from South Africa; her sister greets her with, “Hi. nigger!”. Is she slurring my friend? My friend does not think so. It all comes down to what is in intended.

  2. I love it, that sign is hilarious. Where can I get one? This kind of truth in advertising is refreshing.

  3. Put a picture of your mama up there with her legs open with words that says “ daddy’s chicken.”

  4. When does an everyday word become a “slur”? Half a century after it was an everyday word?

    Two and a half years ago I posted here: “I see nothing surprising in a sign of that era reading “Eat Nigger Chicken” – a type of cooked chicken dish. As for it being a slur, nigger only became one with time, being simply a corruption of negro……..”

    Since then the world has seen a massively one-sided response to ‘racism’. As this is an American website, most of those visiting it will be aware of the Black Lives Matter movement. But how many know that a British man was sacked for flying a “White Lives Matter” banner? He was also investigated by the police for racism!

    Meanwhile an Indo-British professor wrote: “I’ll say it again. White Lives Don’t Matter. As white lives” and “Abolish whiteness”. She was never investigated for her anti-White postings.

    In the last few days an African-Briton who is an Anglican Priest tweeted, “The cult of Captain Tom Moore is a cult of white British nationalism. I will offer prayers for the repose of his kind and generous soul, but will not be joining the ‘national clap’ ”.

    The last may mean nothing to those outside the UK. But enter “Captain Tom Moore” on a search engine and you will learn about him. He served in Burma during World War II, fighting the Japanese. Confined to his home because of the Covid-19 virus and having to use a walking frame – he was 99 – he began walking around his garden to raise money for health charities. His target had been £1,000. By his 100th birthday he had raised £32 million (US$44 million).

    British people had previously been invited to stand outside their front doors at a fixed time and day each week and clap in support of health workers and carers. The Prime Minister appealed to people to stand on their doorsteps at 1800 hrs on 03 Feb 2021 – the day after Capt Moore’s death – and clap. That is what sparked Robinson-Brown’s antagonism towards the spontaneous countrywide support for “Captain Tom’s campaign”. Robinson-Brown has yet to have his highly offensive “cult” claims investigated.

    The above examples show what I mean by “a massively one-sided response to ‘racism’ ”. We are all born with our parents’ ethnicity. It is up to each of us as to what we do with it.

    As for Gerome Riley’s “Kid’s [why the apostrophe?] don’t see color, they’re taught it”, those “kids” all have eyes, so of course they “see color”. And they see different colours, differences that are “taught” by the existence of support organisations for members of specific races. Black Lives Matter being currently the most obvious. Other examples are the NAACP, the US Black Police Association and the Asian American Police Association.

    What makes Riley think children are not aware of different races, and from a very young age? A baby soon recognises its mother.

    And siding with those of one’s own race is simply innate; it is to do with the familiarity of sameness. And it applies to all animals, not just humans.

    The origins of the USA have a lot to answer for. Treating people of different races differently from the start is a historic fact. The changes in attitudes since the days of the Grand Cafe sign have been for the good. But does human nature change? Treating every person as an individual – rather than being of a certain race or religion or culture or political persuasion – would do no harm.

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