Television company as a Public Service and brought to you today by a television provider. Welcome to the library here. I am the director of this author event. If you have one unfortunate update to our program. We will have one person not discussion, due to a workrelated trip but the good news is that you going to be at sea review of his new documentary which will be aired on cbs leader this year in which is based upon ten years of research by our guest. A curator with more than 30 Years Experience rated doctor gretchen has consulted for more than 250 institutions. Including the smithsonian, the Jewish Museum in new York State Historical association. She is the director of the graduate program in the State University of new york and the author of in the spirit of martin. Living legacy of doctor Martin Luther king junior. And through the eyes of others. Africanamericans and identity in american art. In her new book, driving while black, today it just cannot today. She tells about the indispensable queen book which both reshape the africanamerican traveling experience throughout her sacredly did land sacrum segregated land. Please welcome gretchen to the free library. [applause]. Gretchen good evening. It is wonderful to be in this great city of philadelphia and i apologize that rick was unable to join us this evening. He had a little bit of an emergency and he is in italy. But i hope that you will enjoy the preview of our fellow a sense along. Im sure many of you passing the green book movie and i am going to talk this evening really about the story and that story is about the automobile. The role it played in the africanAmerican Life. I would like you to think about how important your mobility is to you and how important is that they are able to travel when you want to and how important is that to american liberty. The ability to travel freely is something that all of us in this room take for granted. But if you think about the role that mobility played for africanamericans, very much the market history, africanamericans were prohibited from traveling freely. Travel in the idea and journey is essential to the African American experience. The your ideal of the enslavement begins to journey for africanamericans. And it is central to what it means to be black in this country. But the idea of travel is about forced travel read this is the path, and it says please let Benjamin Mcdaniel pass, in virginia and return on monday or tuesday next from missus madison. June 1st, 1843. So africanamericans traveling and have passes or permission. Freedom was so important to many persons enslaved persons, that they ran away. They sold themselves and exercised the friedman freedom of movement. Have a five yearold granddaughter and shes give me the kindergarten cold. [laughter]. In the early 20th century, the great migration which is the next step in the jury for africanamericans, is the story of the greatest Mass Movement of people in the countrys history. Speaking Job Opportunities in the north, and sing racism and poverty in the south, as many as 7 million africanamericans left their homes seeking refuge in such cities as chicago, new york, detroit, for my parents, and philadelphia where my uncles moved. The expanding opportunities in education and employment, more more black citizens among the ranks of the black middle class, the freedom of mobility, go where you wanted when you wanted, became essential. But the ability to avoid the indignity of the Jim Crow Railroad car and bus. And here is a jim crow bus. In the first pass of the 20th century, behavior and etiquette for africanamericans was prescribed by geography and by custom. If you are some particular, he moved over. The world changed from place to place throughout the United States. Each state and some rule. Each community has its own expected etiquette. This does not know the rules of racial etiquette for example. Particular driving etiquette was also expected. African americans a segregations in aspects of the public travel and accommodation in south where it was overt but in the north is dictated by customs. So is de facto segregation. Have buses taxis and trains, Hotels Restaurants beaches, and just about any place the people gathered. This is a Jim Crow Railroad car. His filthy as well as dependent on others. They were only supposed run in the south, many of the men in the north as well. Africanamericans even if you purchased the first class ticket, were often expected to go into the jim crow card. This is a columbia and Gulf Railroad car. From 1929. And you can see the word colored. You see that the back seat. The automobile give africanamericans freedom. The free black travelers for the tyranny of the railroad car augustine and also free to movement and offered dignity. Africanamericans found the segregated trains, give them no dignity. Well, heres your own private rolling living room. If youre driving in your own car, yet a private space, it was protected. You are afraid of the segregated insults pretty for free from listening to the bus driver tell you to move to the back of the bus. You are afraid around car that might be right behind the engine. So this was really an important change in africanAmerican Life. The automobile. By the 1950s, was interstate highway system, upwardly mobile black families were able to travel and become travel consumers. And then they started to consume travel just as they consumed things like rick richard refrigerators and televisions and percolators. They used the dollars and disposable income to purchase automobiles and campers and hotel rooms and restaurant meals. Their history of forced travel, it was important for the black middle class to travel for leisure. They chose to travel because the code. Often parents work hard to make sure that their children were not aware of the dignity that they face prince of the children installed in the backseat, of these cars are not always aware of the indignity that your parents faced norm for they aware of the danger that their parents faced when they went out on the road. If you think about the make and model of automobiles, the very much tied to identity. Africanamericans purchased large cars. We know this from Market Studies that were done on africanamericans that were conducted in the 1940s and 1950s. My Research Firms to the black newspapers. Africanamerican motorists preferred large heavy view expendables mobiles. The science of carson we know we call, gas guzzlers. These were not small cars. I think African Americans preferred large cars because they offered it protection, and were to turnover. They were place to sleep if necessary, you can carry blankets and pillows you can sleep in your car, radiator. You can carry extra sandbox, big heavy coolers full of food because you cannot stop at a restaurant. Black motorists created a home away from home in their automobile. And this is an ad for the Buick Electra and says, all of this is is a fireplace. [laughter]. So wasnt having far and you could sleep in it if you needed to. It just lacked a fireplace printed with civil rights worker needed a car, to travel through rural mississippi, he chose an oldsmobile bucket 88. The rocket was large enough to stretch out with a nice on the front seat. He responded immediately if you hit the accelerator naming enabling him to get away from a pursuing car this is a picture of the rocket td eight. Amino that he had his car in his driveway and it was shot by a sniper on june 12, 1963. Africanamericans also saw their automobiles as a symbol of status. This is a cadillac on harlem street africanamericans were often prevented by discrimination from purchasing houses. You can buy a house because your neighborhood was redlined and banks would not give you a mortgage. Therefore the car became the largest and most important purchase. Africanamericans use their disposable income to buy beautiful cars. You may have heard the stereotype that all africanamericans drove xuppercaseletter. Africanamericans purchased cadillacs in exactly the same proportion percentage as white americans. With a 3 percent. 3 percent of africanamericans purchased cadillacs. That is a stereotype. That is all had those collect some of the preferred car was the buick or the oldsmobile. For africanamericans, traveling car was African Americans, had the freedom to travel but they were forced to stay in segregated black neighborhoods and segregated black accommodations. They would accept them. And we think for a minute, what it was like for all americans before their cars. Before the automobile. And before the automobile, people generally stayed put. They dont travel very far from the neighborhoods. White people generally stayed in white neighborhoods pretty black people generally stated black neighborhoods. In some pork neighborhoods black and white people lived sidebyside. But the country was generally segregated. My race. Think about what happened 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 to say get from a black neighborhood to black resort, he had to go through a variety of white spaces where they were unwelcome. They would say signs and billboards and posters and objects that range from insulting to frightening. They asserted their rights, by going where they wanted and when they wanted in this could be dangerous. Landscape for africanamerican travelers were fought psychologically and emotionally damaging. This is just one example of those kinds of messages that were along the countryside. This is a restaurant chain that is popular in the west coast print discarded and sent lake city and diners entered the restaurant through the giant mouth. This is the banner that welcomed it visitors to bring or greenville texas, the welcomed the blackest man in the righteous people. And of course there were hundreds of downtowns in the United States pretty has africanamericans traveled, you are faced with townsend actually had signs that said if you are black, you need to be out of town before sundown. In these communities were all over the United States. Many many, in the midwest and many in the west, and even if you, in connecticut in the northeast. Theres a great story thats marshall told. He was standing on a train car, a platform waiting for training a man came up to him and said this was before marshall was the Supreme Court justice. In the says new boy, what are you doing in this town. And he said i am waiting for the train and the mayor says, when a boy, you better be out of this town before sundown. Because the sun has never sent for an maker in this town. Then is the story that the marshal tells in his autobiography. Some africanamericans face all kinds of intimidation and even real dangerous when they travel. And this is fair in colorado. I often wonder why they were wearing these outfits. [laughter]. So africanamericans also depended on travel guides. Like the negro motorists which was produced in new york city. Now how many of you have heard of the negro motorists when books. Many of you. Now many of you have heard of the other dozens travel sites that existed. There were many different travel guides for a variety of audiences if you are part of a church group, or a fraternity or sorority, there will guides the found special housing for you. There will guides for many different guys and in the back of the black newspapers magazines, there were travel guides as well. So the green book is most longlasting travel guide in and the main reason it was so longlasting was because of with their relationship with standard oil which is exxon or formally gas stations. Esso gas stations. They were owned by standard oil and they saw africanamericans as market and they had latent self interest. But these people they thought they had money we would like to get some of it. And they had a policy of nondiscrimination. I was in the bathroom. At the gas station so africanamericans, very often preferred esso gasoline. As of the giveaway the green book. And that helped mr. Green make is green book successful. The idea for the green book was based on jewish travel guides. Mr. Green writes in his very first issue of the ring book that is jewish brethren gave him the idea for the travel guide so if you are a Jewish American and you are traveling, you also need to be concerned about places to stay. Very often if you call the hotel said her name was ruben, you would find that they had no rooms available. So jewish newspapers, and there were jewish guides, told you places that you could stay in places we could observe the dietary laws. Green really believed that travel was fatal to prejudice. He believes that people went out across the country, it would help them to beat prejudiced in the country. This was a quote from heartrate train from the innocents abroad. And he says that travel is fatal to prejudice printed victor green adopted that is his mantra. This is victor green and his wife, pretty green was a postal worker and he opened it business in harlem and he opened the green Publishing Company. What is so important in the reason i always talk about this is because the victor green eyes in 1960 in the Publishing Company was then operated by elma green and by four other women but it was a five woman operation and this was a business that Publishing Business was very unusual for women to be working publishing this time. Much less running a Publishing Company. But evergreen continues to run the Publishing Company until the late 1960s. Victor green and a variety of ways of finding places to put in this green book and elma and i have to make sure was in there. One of the ways was by sending out postcards and letters and asking his travelers, people that good experiences traveling to send him information about the places that they stayed. The green book included as stations and this one of course is an esso station. Hotels motels restaurants, ymcas but also churches, doctors, beauticians, barbers, and there is an article at least one article, in each issue an article might tell you about philadelphia. In the things that you could do and see in philadelphia. Her might tell you about chicago. They usually were geographically situated they told you the places where you might be welcome to visit. It was the black middle class that could afford to travel and green shows us the black couple. Over the course of the life of the green book content expanded from just new york, new jersey and the entire east coast, then theentire United States of north america finally to your and asia. But there were other travel guides like this one. This is the Baltimore Afroamerican travel that was a part of the afroamerican newspaper. Other guides the probe guide, travel guide, travel guide and bronze american to name a few. And you can also see the middleclass iconography with the couple playing golfin the upper righthand corner. Many of the places that were listed in the guide, especially the early ones , were either ymca door norm rooms or the home of africanamerican families so if you had an empty room or an extra room, women rented their rooms out. You might provide a Good Breakfast as a way to make extra money for your family and this is a ymca room. This is the rock, if any of you have visited the africanamerican museum in washington dc youve seen the rock which was a leisure place to stay in kettering maine. It was an africanamerican guesthouse run by hazel and Clayton Sinclair and this is the rock, this original environment. This was a place i was away from thebeach. The beaches were segregated in portsmouth and in kittery but you could go and you could stay for a week or two weeks at rock crest. You can enjoy your meals at rock rest, hazel was apparently a really good cook and she catered meals for the White Community as well as the black community. There were other places to stay like mackenzies court in hot springs arkansas which was a motor hotel, perfect for the automobile. You could park rightoutside the door. Most of these places were owned by africanamericans but some were owned by white americans but catered only to black people. These are some advertisements from the green book. For the same values and products that were offered for whiteestablishments. Some of the folks that operated these places clearly placed themselves in the ads to show readers that theywere 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 Park and the National Parks were always open to africanamericans. The problem was that all of the parks facilities, the guesthouses, hotels , restaurants were operated by private individuals and they discriminated. So this is ground for negroes at Shenandoah National park. It took a long time for the National Park to be fully integrated. And 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 visible role in the Civil Rights Movement area you couldnt have the Civil Rights Movement without the automobile this is where two supermarkets and where its really tying himself to doctor Martin Luther king. Very very important and very dangerous. If you were the White Community was concerned about coming to your community. Excuse me. The man at the front of this line is a jazz singer and he traveling back to gadsden motel in birmingham after this participation in this picket line. This is the gadsden motel. After it was bombed. Gadsden provided spaces for civil rights workers to stay Civil Rights Movement, people working in civil rights needed a place to stay and they went south. They needed places to eat. And these places were the targetsof bombings. Some of these places were listed in the green book including the Lorraine Motel which is the place where Martin Lutherking was assassinated. Consider how important it would be to have an automobile if your job was to travel around an entire county and register voters. You had to travel an entire county or if you had to travel a state and register voters read this was, this is called the jenkins microbus and its a pretty marvelous but apparently part of it is now the africanamerican museum, a recently acquired addition this bus was used to travel all over the state of alabama to register voters but also it was used as a school to bring voters in literacy so thatthey can pass the literacy test. And it was a haven for children and it was usedas a meeting space. So it was so important to be able to have mobility when you were trying to register voters and bring people into theCivil Rights Movement. But the bus boycott perhaps is 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 or them to bankrupt, really bankrupt the montgomery bus system, it was important for them to be able 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 by the purchase of a fleet of automobiles. So Martin Luther king and the bus boycott purchase automobiles and people who already had cars help people to drive to work so that they could continue to keep their jobs. And they were able to cutbus revenue by 69 percent. And still their jobs. Only because they had automobiles to take people to work. So the automobile becomes the 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 were segregated and black cabs were not allowed to pick up people at hotels. People flying into various cities for protests would rent a car and that would be their way of adding to the hotel. So how does the story and . In 1954 lbj as his major civil rights legislation that extends Voting Rights and it outlaws segregation and immediately, all public accommodations are opened to africanamericans so the major hotel, the sheraton, howard johnson, the hilton are open to africanamericans and because they can, stay at those places they do. They do stay at those places. So the question i have is does the story and . Or does it remain an issue in america and this is the land of castile who was murdered in an automobile by a Minnesota Police officer in 2016 ends southland heights minnesota and the officer was acquittedof manslaughter. Because he was simply, he said he was afraid of castile. Sibley because of the color of his skin. This is a cartoon by Stuart Carlton who is the former editorial cartoonist of milwaukee journal central. And its funny but its also not funny. So i guess the question is are we still in this place . As this story ended or does it continue . And how do we address the problem that we have now with africanamericans andthe automobile . The green book of out of business and the black hotels gradually lose their clientele and the Large Chain Hotels flourish but the black hotels go out of business. The landscape is forever changed with the help of ordinary men and women choosing the automobile and travel as their weapon. So if you do have a question raise your hand, we will lend a microphone to you. Please ask your questionin the form of a question. When that girl tried to open the car door, was that you . My father was a photographer and it was a piece of film that i found and i gave all of my old home movies to rick and he printed them digitally and that was one of the pieces of film. On an exhibition curator primarily and i was doing an exhibition in Saratoga Springs new york and a colleague of mine who was had written a book about leisure in Sarasota Springs asked me if id ever heard of the green book. About 20 years ago and i had never heard of it at that point andi was intrigued. And one of my graduate students was from chicago. I knew that they had one at the university of chicago and one of my students copy it for me and that was my first green book and i started with the green book, but as i got into the research i realize the story is much broader than the green book. Itsreally about the automobile. And the way that the automobile changed back for American Life area so the story kind of expanded from there. You said the green book was an application for freeze. Some of them were given away for free and others were sold for the dollar area. Green sold them and he sold them out of his Harlem Office and in some places they were sold standard oil purchase them. Standard oil at a contract with green to buy thousandsof copies. Was there any effort to put flags along with some roads and the some of the places where they went to say that this was the green book nation 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 stance because they were urban renewed and in the late 60s when urban renewal went through city they bulldozed entire black neighborhoods and many of those places are gone so if you look even at my capital city of albany, the largest part of the black neighborhood was just completely wiped out by urban renewal so yes, there are some markers that will be going up at historic green book sites. And the trust has beenworking on that. I want to thank you for writing that book. I live that experience. I want to know if many of the people, the things youve collectedwill be part of a permanent exhibit. Thats a good question. I think that the film is going to premiere in detroit, motor city and Detroit Historical society is going to be doing an exhibition on, im not sure if its going to be on automobiles,on travel , on the green book. Do you know the name ofthe jewish green book . So the research that i did and i actually had a jewish historian helping me because i couldnt find anything. Theres a small volume called the daily cost route and it was a publication that basically told you how to observe dietary laws and what you could eat, you could have this or hershes chocolate, certain things that were kosher. And in the back of that was a listing of places to stay. And that we decided was probably the guide before the guy that you and i were talking about that came out in the 50s or early 60s. Right here, if we can go to the mic area. I bought a modern copy of the green book taking we could travel south and maybe learn something more and but the modern one reprint is only what the states have now. Not really where you couldgo and learn something. More of what the states laws are in terms of racial equality rather than what it was inthe past. I was looking more of something from the past. You can buy reprints of the original green book but they are also on the New York Public Library website area if you just type in New York Public Library green book, they will all pop up. The holiday insist rosalie was founded as a places that would notsegregate and that would be all over the country, is thatright . I dont know the answer to that. But wouldnt that be lovely . A few more questions. There was an increasing number as we get into thelate 60s , there were an increasing number of people who were looking for integrated accommodations area i dont know the specific history about holiday inn but i will look it up but i do know there was an increasing interest in integrated accommodations and some liberal americans, white americans work speaking those places that wereintegrated. There were two men that were hired by standard oil market through 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. [inaudible] i dont think so. I think its probably forgotten. Okay. I think we can all get on board with that one, please join me in thanking Gretchen Sorin. Weeknights this month we are featuring book tv programs showcasing whats available every weekend here on cspan2. Tonight we feature authors of history books starting with professor serenas aden on the boston massacre, then its history professor benjamin park who wrote about the founding of novel illinois by mormon leader joseph smith in 1839. Thats followed by Gretchen Sorin and her book driving whileblack on how the automobile impacted the life of africanamericans. Book tvall this weekend every weekend on cspan2. Television has changed since cspan began 41 years ago but our Mission Continues , to provide an unfiltered view of government. Already this year we brought you primary election coverage, the president ial impeachment process and now the federal response to the coronavirus. Watch all of cspans Public Affairs programming online or listen on our free radio app and be part of the National Conversation through the washington journalprogram or through our social media feed. Cspan, created by private industry, americas table Television Companies as a Public Service and brought to you your television provider. Good evening everybody. Welcome to politics and prose. Im bradley graham, coowner of the bookstore along with my wife lissa muscatine. While theres been a lot of news, a lot of it about the trial in the senate but some important things have been happening in russia as well,
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.