CoyRogers t1_jccif7w wrote on March 15, 2023 at 9:11 PM

Perry, Fla.Gerald Walker works less than a mile from Deal's Oyster Bar, but he's never been there.It's not that Walker doesn't like oysters. It's just that as a black man, he's not interested in eating at a white establishment.That's the way things are in this Gulf Coast hamlet, southeast of Tallahassee."All the bars are segregated," said 67-year-old William Monroe, who is black. "They have a part for the blacks and a part for the whites."While segregation is no longer legal, people's habits haven't changed. Blacks and whites still live, worship and drink separately. And nobody seems to mind.Nobody in Perry, that is.But three weeks ago when Talmadge Branch, a black Maryland lawmaker, was told he had to drink in a back room at the Perry Package Store and Lounge, residents found themselves staring into news cameras while state and federal officials swarmed the area investigating the complaint.Branch, 45, told investigators he was en route to a political meeting Feb. 3 when he stopped at Perry Package. Branch asked for a draft beer and was told by bartender Patricia Hughes she would have to serve him in the back room. He heard a female voice say that "coloreds are served back there."Hughes and bar owner David Holton, whose liquor license is now in jeopardy, admitted Branch was sent to the other side of the bar and, in an agreement with prosecutors, they apologized and paid a $5 fine.