No Vanilla Ice Cream for Negroes? History versus Folklore #1

The idea that black people were not allowed to eat vanilla ice cream was popularized in Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: People in Stamps used to say that the whites in our town were so prejudiced that a Negro couldn't buy vanilla ice cream. Except on July Fourth. Other days he had to be satisfied with chocolate. People who take that literally miss the implications of "used to