Boss Tells Black Employee He Can't Use Fountain Because It's For 'White People'

A black employee at a Tennessee cotton gin recorded his supervisor allegedly telling him he could not drink from a water fountain because it was for "white people" only, CNN reported.

Not only did the supervisor tell Untonia Harris he could not drink from the fountain, but threatened to hang him if he did, CNN reported.

Harris, a former employee at the Atkinson Cotton Warehouse in Memphis, recorded an exchange between him and the supervisor to prove his suspicions that he was being discriminated against. The audio begins with Harris, who was laid off in January, asking if he can use a microwave.

"Hell no!" replied a man said to be Harris' supervisor, according to the audio obtained by CNN.

Harris asked why he can't use the microwave, to which the supervisor replied it's because Harris is not white.

During another occasion the supervisor barred Harris from using the water fountain.

"I need to put a sign here that says, 'White people only,' " the supervisor allegedly said. Harris asked what would happen if he did drink from the fountain.

"That's when we hang you," said the man on the recording.

The recording is reminiscent of the Jim Crow period in the South, when legal segregation between the races was enforced from the 1880s up until the '60s.

The man from the recording expressed support for Jim Crow, when measures such as the "grandfather clause" were passed to make it almost impossible for black people to vote.

"Back then, nobody thought anything about it," the supervisor allegedly said. "Now, everybody is made to...think it's bad."

Harris and another employee who was also discriminated against, Marrio Mangrum, have since filed a federal complaint against the supervisor, according to ABC News.

E.W. Atkinson, the owner of the warehouse, told CNN he had no idea that his employees, 90 percent of whom are black, were being subjected to racism.

"If I heard it, I would have stopped it immediately," Atkinson said.

The supervisor was hired by the company Federal Compress, where the management staff is outsourced. Federal Compress told CNN it "very much" regrets the situation was not reported when it first occurred and that the supervisor has since been fired.