Cooperstown graduate program of the State University of new york and the author of in the spirit of martin the living legacy of dr. Martin luther king jr. And through the eyes of others africanamericans and identity in american art. In her new book, driving while black, just out today, professor sorin tells the story of the indispensable green book which both reshaped the africanamerican traveling experience throughout our segregated land and helped drive the nays sent Civil Rights Movement. Please welcome Gretchen Sorin to the free library of philadelphia. [applause] good evening. Its wonderful to be in this great city of philadelphia. And im, i apologize that rick wasnt able to join us this evening. He had a little bit of an emergency, and hes in italy. But i hope that youll enjoy the preview of our film that he sent along. So im going to talk, im sure many of you have seen the green book movie, and im going to talk this evening really about something, a broader story. And if that story is about the automobile and the role that the automobile played in africanamerican life. Id like you all to think about how important your mobility is to you, how important is it that youre able to travel where you want to when you want to, how important is that to american liberty. The ability to travel freely is something that all of us in this room talk for granted. Take for granted. But if you think about the role that liberty that mobility played for africanamericans for very much of american history, africanamericans were prohunted from traveling prohibited from travel thing freely. Travel and the idea with of journey central to the africanamerican experience. The ordeal of the Middle Passage and enslavement begins the journey for africanamericans, and its central to what it means to be black in this country. But the idea of travel is about forced travel. This is a path, a slave path, and it says pleased to let Benjamin Mcdaniel pass to new market and return on monday or tuesday next to montpelier from mrs. Madison. June 1st, 1843. So africanamericans traveling had to have passes. They had to have permission. Freedom was so important to many enslaved persons that they ran away. They sold themselves and exercised their freedom of movement. Excuse me. I have a 5yearold granddaughter, and hes given me the kindergarten [laughter] in the early 20th century, the great migration is the story of the greatest mass if movement of people in this countrys history. Seeking Job Opportunities in the north and fleeing racism and poverty in the south as many as seven million africanamericans left their homes seeking refuge in such cities as chicago, new york, detroit, newark where my parents moved and philadelphia where my uncle moved. With expanding opportunities in education and employment came more and more black citizens among the ranks of the black middle class. The freedom of mobility to go where you wanted, when you wanted became essential. But it also came to mean the ability to avoid the indignity of the jim crow bus and the Jim Crow Railroad car. And here is a jim crow bus. In the first half of the 20th century, behavior and etiquette for africanamericans was proscribed by geography and custom. If you were from a particular place, you knew what the rules were. Rules changed from place to place throughout the United States. Each state had its own rules. Each community had its own expected etiquette. Emmett till didnt know the rules of racial etiquette, for example. Particular driving etiquette was also expected. Africanamericans faced segregation in moat most aspects in most aspects of public travel and accommodation in the south where it was overt. But in the north, it was dictate by custom. So was the fact of segregation of buses, taxis, trains, hotels, restaurants, beaches and just about any place that people gathered. And this is a Jim Crow Railroad car. Insulting, humiliating, filthy as well as feint on timetables dependent on timetables. Although they were only supposed to run in the south, many of them ran in the north as well. And africanamericans even if you purchased a first class ticket were often expected to go into the jim crow car. This is a columbia and Gulf Railroad car from 1929. And you can see the word colored on the backseat. The automobile gave africanamericans freedom. It freed black travelers from the tyranny of the Jim Crow Railroad car and bus. It offered freedom of movement and it offered dignity. Africanamericans found that the segregated trains that gave them no dignity and here, well, here is your own private, rolling living room, right . If you were driving in your own car, you had a private space, it was protected, you were freed from the segregated insults, you were freed from listening to the bus driver tell you to move to the back of the bus, you were freed from the railroad car that might be right behind the engine. Is so this was really an important change in africanamerican life. The automobile. By the 1950s with the interstate highway system, upwardly mobile black families were able to travel and become travel consumers. And they started to consume travel just as theyd consumed things like refridge raters and televisions and coffee percolators. They used the dollars in their dispose disposable income to purchase many things. It was important for the black middle class to travel for leisure. They chose to travel because they could. Often participants worked hard parents worked hard to make sure that their children were not aware of the indignities they faced. So the children installed in the backseats of these cars or werent always even aware of the indignity their parents faced, nor were they aware of the danger that their parents faced when they went out on the road. Now, if you think about the make and model of automobiles, make and model was very much tied to identity. Africanamericans purchased large cars. And we know this from Market Studies that were done of africanamericans that were conducted in the 1940s and 1950s by Research Firms for the black newspapers. Africanamerican motorists preferred large, heavy buicks and olds mobiles, those kinds of cars we now would call gas guzzlers. These are not small cars. I think africanamericans preferred large cars because they offered protection, they were hard to turn over, they were a place to sleep if necessary, you could carry blankets and pillows, and you could sleep in your car. You would carry water for the radiator, you could carry extra pan the belts, you fan belts, you carried those big coleman coolers full of food because you couldnt stop at a restaurant. Black motorists created a home away from home in their automobiles. And this is an ad for the buick electra, and it says all the electra lacks is a fireplace. [laughter] so the electra was a heavy car, and you could sleep in it if you needed to. When civil rights worker medgar evers needed a car to travel through rural mississippi, he chose an oldsmobile rocket 88. The rocket was large enough to enable him to stretch out for the night on the front seat, and it responded immediately if he hit the accelerator, enabling him to get away from a pursuing car. This is a picture of the rocket 88. And ask we know that method forward evers died beside his medgar evers died beside his car in his driver, shot if by a sniper in 1963. Africanamericans also saw their automobiles as a symbol of class status, and this is a cadillac on a harlem street. Africanamericans were often prevented by discrimination from purchasing houses. You couldnt buy a house because your neighborhood was red hawaiianed and banks redlined and banks would not give you a mortgage. Therefore, the car became their largest and most important purchase. And, therefore, africanamericans used their disposable income to buy beautiful cars. Now, you may have heard the stereotype that all africanamericans bought cadillacs. Africanamericans purchased cadillacs in exactly the same proportion, percentage as white americans, thats 3 . 3 of africanamericans purchased cadillacs. That is a stereotype that all africanamericans had those, those cad a lacks. The preferred car was the buick or the oldsmobile. But for africanamericans, travel by carr posed a paradox. Africanamericans had the freedom to travel, but they were forced to stay in segregated black neighborhoods anding is segregated black accommodations that would accept them. Now, id like you to think for a minute about what it was like for all americans before there were cars, before the automobile. Before the automobile people generally stayed put. They didnt travel very far at all from their own neighborhoodings. White people generally stayed in white neighborhoods, black people generally stayed in black a neighborhoods. In some poor neighborhoods, black and white people lived side by side, but the country was generally segregate by race. Now think about what happens with the automobile. With their cars, africanamericans crisscrossed the country traveling through white spaces to get from a safe black space to another safe black space, say to get from a black neighborhood to a black resort, they had to go through a variety of white spaces where they were unwelcome. They faced signs, billboards, posters and objects that ranged from insulting to frightening. Thaw asserted their rights finish they asserted their rights to unfetteredded travel by going where they wanted, when they wanted, and this could be dangerous. The landscape for africanamerican travelers was fraught with psychologically and emotionally damaging messages. And this is just one example of those kinds of messages. Welcome to klan country. This is a restaurant chain that was popular on the west coast, started in salt lake city, and diners entered the restaurant through the giant coons mouth. And this is the banner that welcomed visitors to greenville, texas. Greenville welcome t. Blackest land, the whitest people. And, of course, there were hundreds of sun downtowns in the United States. And sundown towns in the United States. They were faced with towns that actually had signs that said if you were black, you needed to be out of town before sun down. And these communities were all over the United States. Many, many in the midwest, many in the west and even a few, like connecticut, in the northeast. Theres a great story that Thurgood Marshall told. He was standing on a train car, a train platform waiting for a train to shreveport, and a man came up to him and said and this is before Thurgood Marshall was Supreme Court justice, when he was a lawyer for the nacp. And the man says to him, nigger boy, what are you doing in this town . And he says im waiting for the train to shreveport. And the man says, well, nigger boy, you better with out of this town before sun down because the sun has never set for a nigger in this town. Thats a story that Thurgood Marshall tells in his autobiography. Some africanamericans faced all kinds of intimidation and even real dangers when they traveled. And this is a fair in colorado. I have to wonder why were they wearing these outfits on the ferris wheel. So africanamericans often depended on travel guides like the negro to motorists green book which was produced in new york city. Now, how many of you have heard of the negro motorists between book . Many of you. And how many of you have heard of all of the other dozens of travel guides that existed . There were many different travel bides for a variety of audiences. If you were a part of a church group or a fraternity or a sorority, there were guides that found special housing for you. There were guides for show people. There were many different guides. And in the back of black newspapers and magazines, there were travel guides as well. So the green book is the most long lasting of the africanamerican travel guide. And the reason it was so long lasting was because of their relationship with with standard oil. Which is exxon or formerly exo gas stayings. They saw africanamericans as a market, and they had enlightened selfinterests. They thought these people have money, and we would like to get some of it. And they had a policy of nondiscrimination in their bathrooms. At their gas stations. And so africanamericans very often preferred their gasoline. And they gave away the green book, and that helped victor green to make his green book successful. The idea for the green book was based on jewish travel guides. Victor green writes in his very first issue of the green book that his jewish brethren gave him the idea for the travel guide. So when, if you were a jewishamerican and you were traveling, you also needed to be concerned about places to stay. Very often if you called the hotel and said your name was schwartz or your name was rubin, you would find that suddenly they had no rooms available. So jewish newspapers and jewish, there were jewish guides that told you places you could stay and places where you could observe the dietary laws. Green really believed that travel was fatal to prejudice. He believed if people went out across the country, it would help to defeat prejudice in this cup. And this is a quote in this country. And this is a quote from mark twain from the innocence a abroad. He says travel fatal to prejudice, and victor green adopted that as his mantra. This is victor green and his wife alma. Green was a postal worker. He opened a business in harlem, he opened the Green Publishing Company. What is so important and the reason i always talk and show alma is because victor green dies in 1960, and the Green Publishing Company was then operated by alma green and by four other women. So it was a fivewoman operation. And this was a business that Publishing Business was very unusual for women to be working in publishing in this time period, much less running a Publishing Company. But alma green continued to run the Publishing Company until the late 1960s. Victor green had a variety of way of finding places to put in his green book and ill alma, i have to make sure almas in there. One of the ways was by sending out postcards and by sending out letters and asking his travelers, people that had good experiences traveling, to send him information about the places that they stayed. The green book included gas stations and this one, of course, is an exo station. Hotels, motels, restaurants, with mcas, also ymcas, churches, doctors, barbers and there was at least one article in each issue. An article might tell you about philadelphia and the things that you could do and see in philadelphia. Or it might tell you about chicago. They usually were geographically situated, and they toll you the places that you might be welcome to visit. The green book also courted the black middle class and reflects black middle class values about polite and wellmanneredded behavior. And here i think you can see that. You have a very charming muddle class couple with matched luggage. You can see a little butt of their car, and you can see little bit of their car, and you can see their suburban neighborhood in the background. It was the black middle class that could afford to travel, and green shows us the ideal black traveling couple. Over the course of the life of the green book, the content expanded from just new york, new jersey and contract connecticut to the entire east coast, then the entire United States, then all of north america and finally to europe, africa and asia. But there were other travel guides like this one. This is the baltimore a afroamerican travel map that was part of the afroamerican newspaper. Other guides were called the go guide, travel guide, the travel guide and [inaudible] just to name a few. And you could also see the middle class iconography here with the couple playing golf in the upper righthand corner. Many of the places that were listed in the guide and especially the early ones were either ymca dorm rooms or the home of africanamerican families. So you might, if you had an empty room or an extra room, women rented their room ares out, and they provided good breakfasts as a way to make extra money for their families. And this is a ymca room. This is the rock. If any of you have visited the africanamerican museum in washington, d. C. , i youve seen the rock which was a please your place leisure place to stay in maine. It was an africanamerican guesthouse that was run by hazel and clayton sinclair, and this is the rock in its original environment. This was a mace that was away from a place that was away from the beach. The beaches were segregated. But you could go and you could stay for a week or two weeks at rock rest. You could enjoy your meals at rock rest. Hazelling was, apparently, a really good cook, and she catered meals for the White Community as well as for the back community. There were other places to stay like mckenzies dmowrt hot springs court in hot springs, arkansas, which was a motor hotel and perfect for the automobile. You could park right outside your door. Most of these places were own by africanamericans, but some were owned by white americans but catered only to black people. These are some advertisements from the green book. They offered the same values and products that were offered to whites in parallel establishments. Some of the folks that operated these places clearly placed themselves in the ads to show readers that they were black. And this grainy picture is of Shenandoah National park. I know the National Parks like to say that you are always welcome at the National Parks, and the National Parks were always open to africanamericans. The problem was that all of the park facilities the guesthouses, the hotels, the restaurants were operated by private, private individuals, and they discriminated. So this is a picnic grounds for negroes at Shenandoah National park. It took a long time for the National Parks to be fully integrated. Finish id like to talk just for a few minutes about the role of the automobile in the Civil Rights Movement. It was really very important for the automobile played a key and pivotal role in the Civil Rights Movement. You couldnt have the Civil Rights Movement without the automobile. This is where supermarkets ware supermarket, and hes clearly tying himself to dr. Martin luther king. Very, very important and very dangerous if you were, the White Community was concerned about king coming to your community. Excuse me. The man at the front of this line is a jazz sungar, and he is singer, and he travel baco the gadsden motel in birmingham after participation in this picket line. This is the gadsden motel after it was bombed. Gadsden provided spaces for civil rights workers to stay. The Civil Rights Movement, people working civil rights needed places to stay when they went south, they needed places to eat. And these places were the targets of bombings. Some of these places were listed in the green book including the Lorraine Motel which is the place where Martin Luther king was assassinated. Now consider how important it would be to have an automobile if your job was to travel around an entire county and register voters. If you had to travel an entire county or if you had to travel an entire state and register voters. This was, this is called the jenkins microbus, and its a pretty marvelous bus. Apparently, part of it is now the africanamerican museum, a recentlyacquired addition, and it was used to travel all over the state of alabama to register voters but also used as a school to train voters in literacy so that they could pass the literacy tests, and it was a haven for children, and it was used as a meeting space. Is so it was so important to be able to have mobility when you were trying to register voters and bring people into the Civil Rights Movement. But the bus boycott is perhaps the most significant use of the automobile. And there were bus boycotts all over the south. Here you see Martin Luther king helping some women into a car so that they can get to work. In order for them to bankrupt, really bankrupt the montgomery bus system, it was important for them to be able, for to continue to be able to go to work and to move about the city. The way they were able to move about the city was through the purchase of a fleet of automobiles. So Martin Luther king and the bus boycott purchased automobiles, and people who already had cars helped people to drive to work so that they could continue to keep their jobs. And they were able to cut the bus revenue by 63 and still 69 and still keep their jobs. But only because they had automobiles to take people to work. So the automobile becomes a weapon in the arsenal of the Civil Rights Movement. It was also key when people needed to get from the airport to their hotels. Since cabs were is segregated and black cabs were not allowed to pick up people at hotels, people flying into various city for protests would rent a car. And that would be their way of getting to the hotel. So how does this story end . In 1964 lbj passes major civil rights legislation that extends voting rights, and it outlaws segregation. And immediately, all public accommodations are opened to africanamericans. So the major hotels the sheraton, howard johnsons, the hilton are open to africanamericans. And because they can stay at those place, they do stay at those places. So the question i have is does this story end. Or does it remain an issue in america . And this is Fernando Castillo who was murdered in his automobile by a Minnesota Police officer in 2016 in minnesota. And the officer was a acquitted of manslaughter because he was simply, he said he was afraid of ty land degree castillo simply because of the color of his skin. This is a cartoon by a former editorial cartoonist for the milwaukee journal sentinel. And its funny, but its also, its also not funny. So i guess, i guess the question is, are we still in this place. Has this story ended, or does it continue. And how do we, how do we address the problem that we have now with africanamericans and the automobile . The between book goes out of the green book goes out of business, and the irony is the black hotel it is gradually lose their clientele. And the large chain hotel flourish, but the black hotels go out of business. But the landscape is forever changed with the help of ordinary men and women choosing the automobile and travel as their weapon. We do have a question, please raise your hand. We will run a microphone to you. Please ask your question in the form of a question. I see or i saw [inaudible] was that little girl who opened the car door, was that you . [laughter] yeah, it was. It was. Yeah, it was. [laughter] [applause]. It was about 20 years ago and i was intrigued and one of my graduate students was from chicago. I found they had wasnt at the university of chicago and one of my graduate students copied it for me and that was my first screen book and i started with the green book but as i got into the research i realized the story is much broader than the green book. Its really about the automobile and the way that the automobile changed africanamerican lives. The story expanded from there. You said the green book was free. How did they make money . Green sold them and he sold them out of harlem office. Standard oil purchased them. Standard oil had a contract with green to buy thousands of copy ies. [inaudible] to say that this was the green book stations that people went to . The National Trust for Historic Preservation has been trying to put up markers at some of the sites. A large number of the sites are no longer because they were urban renewed. In late 1960s they bulldozed black neighborhoods and many places are gone. If you look even at my capital city of albany, the large the large part of black neighborhood was completely wiped out by urban renewal. So, yes, there are markers that will be going up at historic in green book sites and the trust has been working on that. I want to thank you for writing the book. Thank you. I want to know that many of the things that you collected will be part of permanent exhibit . Thats a really good question. I think the film is going to premier in detroit, motor city, and Detroit Historical society will be doing an exhibition on im not sure if its on automobiles, on travel, on the green book. [inaudible] are there books about it . So the research that i did and i actually had a jewish historian helping me on that because i couldnt find anything and theres a small volume called the daily kush root and said you had to observe dietary laws, what you could eat, certain things that were kosir. That was probably the guide before the guide that you and i were talking about in late 50s. Another question from the audience. Right here. I bought modern version of the book but the modern one is only of what the state have now and not really where you could go and learn something. More of what the states laws are in terms of quality rather than the past. I was looking more of the past. You can buy blueprints and if you type new york Library Green book, theyll all pop up. [inaudible] specifically were founded as places that would in the segregate and would be all over the country, is that right . I dont know the answer to that, but wouldnt that be lovely . [laughter] a few more questions. There was an increasing number, as we get into late 60s, increasing number of people who were looking for integrated accommodations. I dont know the specific history about holiday inn, i will look it up, though, i do know there was increasing in integrated accommodations and some liberal americans, white americans were seeking those places that were integrated. How was what was the deal that allowed him to give specific rights to the green book . There were two men that were hired by standard oil to market to the black community and both of them found that when they were traveling for Company Business they had to use the green book and that led to a relationship between standard oil and the green book. Is there among africanamericans to shopping at exxon . Is it known or i dont think so. I think its probably forgotten. Yeah. Okay. [inaudible] [laughter] please join me in thinking Gretchen Sorin. [applause] i will. [inaudible conversations] here is a look at authors that will be appearing soon, weekly Author Interview program that includes bestselling nonfiction books. Last week the way to save american democracy is to create more political party. Coming up New York Times reporter jennifer will chronical first year of the largest class of women ever elected to congress. And this weekend on afterwords former Deputy National security adviser kt mcfarland details her time in the trump administration. It was a real civil war in the Republican Party about the Establishment Republicans represented by jeb bush, didnt get the nomination, the revolutionary donald trump. The democrats are going through the same thing right now, they are having a civil war in their party. Is it going to be the traditional democrats . Is it going to be some outsider . Is it going to be a socialist . But i think that is indicative of the fact that washington just doesnt work. The stuff that has worked for the last 40 years in the United States to govern the people really hasnt kept up with the country and i guess at the end of this book that i realized after a long period of thoughtfulness and i went into the wilderness and tried to figure it out that america goes through divisive periods, roughly every 40 years. Now, why . Its because we are dynamic in the country. Demographically, geographically, socially, economically, we are constantly reinventing ourselves not just as individuals but as a nation and government by its very nature is sort of stuck, its a status quo institution. We will do things the same way again and its people who then get stuck and its a status quo. So america is set up to have the revolutions, political revolutions. We had one in the very beginning in the American Revolution but ever since then weve mostly had them, revolutions played in the ballot box. Thats what in the middle of now. After words saturdays 10 00 p. M. Eastern and pacific on book tv on cspan2. All previous afterwards are available on podcast or watch online at booktv. Org. Book tv recently went to capitol hill to find out what is in the list of the congressmen. Oh, my goodness . Thats almost, too big to say. Im in the process of 5 different books. I just finished one of them, the latest one, grant by