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office over there. and we decided to open this up as an exhibit space. the decision to -- whether or not to put -- the white and colored signs over the doors of the train station was, was a very contentious one. we consulted any number of people -- including the african-american historical society here in orange, and a number of consultants, people like roger wilkens, rebecca gilmore-coleman, people in the field of african-american history. i would say overwhelmingly the response we got was a yes. put them back. people need to be made aware of what life was like not all that long ago...

offices. almost universally. so because the post office was the federal space, it had to be sectioned off to itself. the wire cage you see there is historically accurate to the 1910 period. the u.s. postal service though, was never segregated. and so if you were coming to buy a ticket to ride the train, and you were an african-american you, had to walk through the colored door but if you were an african-american who lived in the montpellier station area, you walked through a separate door along with your white neighbor and came in through the same door to the same space and got your ...

the duponts, especially william and annie dupont had actually lived in europe for a number of years before coming back to america where they chose to settle out here in western virginia. so they were coming into a different social atmosphere than what they were accustomed to either in delaware where the family was or, or in europe certainly. and, in the south, things were segregated. they were in the north as well. but not to the same extent. certainly they were not in europe. but because he was living in the south, he had to abide by social customs here, with the segregated set of w...