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Associated Press
Montpellier Station, Virginia (AP) — The United States Postal Service has closed a small post office in Virginia. This is because agency management is concerned about being inside a historic train station that doubles as a museum on racism.
In a statement about the closure this week, the USPS said former President James had a historic sign above his two exterior doors at the museum near his Montpelier mansion in Madison, and one pointed out that one was labeled "white" and the other "colored".
Further, "Postal service management believes that some customers associate segregated entrances based on race with the current operation of the post office, thereby We thought it could draw a negative association between our operations and the Postal Service, a painful legacy of discrimination and segregation.”
The statement was made by a USPS spokesperson on Wednesday. provided to The Associated Press by
Operations at the Montpelier Station Post Office will be suspended with the intention of finding suitable replacement districts within the community, or if there are none, and will proceed with an investigation into whether to abolish the branch.
The post office had one employee and was open four hours a day, according to a statement. It served about 100 people and closed in June, according to Culpeper Star-Exponent.
The restored Mustard Yellow Depot is owned by a non-profit foundation that manages Montpelier estates. A panel on the exterior of the building introduces the contents of the exhibition.
Christy Moriarty, her director of communications at the Montpellier Foundation, told the newspaper that the racist exhibit and the post office have coexisted since her 2010.
} will remain open," she said. "We urge the USPS to reverse its decision and reopen this historic facility that has served this community for over a century.
US Congressman Abigail Spann representing the region. Berger also expressed concern about the closure in a letter to the agency's Virginia district manager.
