Patrons of Joe’s Crab Shack were seated at their table and served a plate of “What the f**k?” .
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The picture’s caption read, “Hanging at Groesbeck, Texas on April 12th 1895” with a speech bubble saying, “All I said was, ‘I don’t like the gumbo!'”
Williams and friend Chauntyll Allen saw the photo embedded under laminate in their table.
Roseville, Minn. – Restaurant chain Joe’s Crab Shack is apologizing after customers at a location in Minnesota discovered an image showing the public hanging of a black man embedded in a table as decor.
“We take this matter very seriously, and the photo in question was immediately removed”, said David Catalano, Ignite chief operating officer, according to the Star Tribune.
“The City of Roseville was shocked and saddened to learn of the racist imagery being openly displayed at the Roseville location of national restaurant chain Joe’s Crab Shack”.
At the press conference, Williams said, “We just felt sick and confused”, the Star Tribune reported.
Law journals from the time say that he was convicted of killing a man with a rock in 1894, though Allen said the justice system in the late 19th century was used to go after black people and execute them.
Williams said he alerted the managers and other staffers, some of whom were African-American.
In a statement on Facebook, the NAACP called on the restaurant to donate to an organization that helps African-American youth in the Minneapolis-St.
The Minneapolis NAACP is demanding a public apology from Joe’s Crab Shack, as well the immediate removal of any racially offensive imagery from its restaurants. “It is hard to believe that this type of racism is still going on in 2016”, Allen said in a statement published by the NAACP.
Allen said, “I don’t understand why they think this is some kind of joke, the trauma that we endured on our black bodies”.
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Ignite did not immediately respond as to whether hanging images are on other tables at other restaurants.
