How much is a quarter worth?

If I had to pick a quote from all the movies that we watched on the civil rights movement. There is one that just blows my mind. When the marchers were walking to the courthouse to register to vote in the Selma march, the local police stopped them at the door. While at the door one of the marchers was asking the police chief some question. Simple questions that if asked today would have an obvious answer such as; why may we not register, it is the law? However there was one question’s answer that I can not believe. The marcher pulled a quarter out of his pocket and asked the policemen; is my quarter worth less than yours because it is a quarter? The police officer should have obviously said no a quarter is a quarter and they are all worth the same regardless of the owner. However the policeman did not answer him because he truly believed that the black man’s quarter was worth less because it was owned by a black man. This is outrageous how someone can believe anything along this sort just seems insane to me. I knew, and still know that racism was prevalent in the south and that there were and still are some extremists but this, this simple question was too much. Through this question it became clear to me how terrible it really was to live in the unfairly segregated south as black person.