Discrimination created an absurd new concern for Renshaw: He was supposed to build a segregated Pentagon. The word came in a telephone call March 7 [1942] from one of [chief of operations Colonel Leslie R.] Groves's aides, Major Donald Antes. "Colonel Groves just asked me to call you and find out whether you have made any provisions for separate design for the different classes of people in the War Department Building," said Antes, who then clarified his euphemism: "By that I mean separate toilet rooms for black and white as required by the Virginia law, and if you haven't taken such precautions that you are to do so immediately." This was news to Renshaw. "Separate design of toilet rooms?" he asked. Yes, replied Antes, who added this coda from Groves: "He said don't slip on it." Renshaw promised to take care of it. The matter was not as simple as Groves believed, however. While Virginia law required whites and blacks to be segregated in public places, Franklin Roosevelt had signed executive order 8802 the previous June, which forbade discrimination against government workers on the basis of race, creed, color, or national origin. Moreover, on March 11 Virginia governor Colgate W. Darden granted a request from [Secretary of War Henry] Stimson to give the War Department exclusive jurisdiction over the land on which the Pentagon was being built. Still, whether out of ignorance or deliberate discrimination, the Army made preparations for separate bathrooms.

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