Association the director of the Cooperstown Graduate Program a State University of new york and the author of in the spirit of marching the living legacy of doctor mlk junior and through the eyes of others africanamericans and identity in arts. In her new book driving while black, just out today, the professor tells a story of the indispensable green book that reshape the africanamerican traveling experience throughout the sacred native land to help drive the Civil Rights Movement. Please welcome gretchen to the free library of philadelphia. [applause] good evening. Its wonderful to be in this great city of philadelphia and i apologize rick could not join us this evening. He had an emergency and italy but i hope we a jewel on enjoy the preview of the film. So im sure many of you have seen the green book movie i will talk this evening of the broader story and that is about the automobile and the role it played in africanamerican life. How important your mobility is to you. How important is it that you will travel where you want to and how important is that to american liberty . The ability to travel freely is something that we all take for granted. But if you think of the role that played for africanamericans very much of American History they were prohibited from traveling freely. Travel and the idea of journey is central to the africanamerican experience. And that begins a journey for africanamericans and is central to what it means to be black in this country. But the idea of travel is about forced travel this is a slave path with Benjamin Mcdaniel in newmarket shenandoah and county to mount pill your for mrs. Madison june 1st 1843. So africanamericans traveling had to have passes and have permission. Freedom was so important, that they ran away. They sold themselves to exercise their freedom of movement. I have a five yearold great granddaughter was given me the kindergarten cold. The great migration which is the next step in the journey for africanamericans is a story of the greatest Mass Movement of people in this countrys histor history. Seeking Job Opportunities in new york and fleeing racism and poverty in the south now 1 million africanamericans left their homes seeking refuge in the cities of chicago, new york, detroit and philadelphia where my uncle moved. For the Outstanding Opportunities of education and employment came more and more black citizens with the rest of the black middle class the freedom of mobility to go where you wanted and when you wanted. Also the ability to avoid the indignity of the jim crow bust and railroad car. And here is the jim crow bus in the first half of the 20th century coming here is etiquette for africanamericans split by geography and customs. If you are from a particular place, you knew what the rules were. You dont change from place to place throughout the United States. Each state had its own rules each community had its own accepted etiquette and still you dont know the rules for racial etiquette africanamericans face segregation mode aspect of public travel and accommodation in the south but it was overt and dictated by custom so de facto segregation hotels and restaurants and beaches and just about any place that people gathered. And this is the Jim Crow Railroad car humiliating and filthy the filthy although they were only supposed to go to the south even if you purchased a firstclass ticket going into the jim crow car and you can see the word colored. The automobile gave africanamericans freedom and from the tyranny that offered freedom of movement and dignity africanamericans found the segregated train and here is your own private rolling living room driving your own car in a private space is protected you are free from listening to the bus driver to tell you to up to the back of the bus and freed from the lower car that might be behind the engine. This is an important change for africanamerican life, the automobile. By the 19 fifties, with the interstate highway syste system, upwardly mobile black families could travel and become travel consumers and they started to consume travel just as they consumed refrigerators and televisions and coffee. Leaders. They use the dollars of disposable income to purchase automobiles and campers and hotel rooms and restaurant meals it was important for the black middle class to travel for leisure and they chose to travel because they could parents worked hard to make sure the children were not aware of the indignities that they faced so the children installed in the back seat of the cars were not always aware of the indignity of the danger the parents face when they went out on the road. So if you think of the make and model of automobiles it is tied to identity africanamericans purchased large cars and we know this from the studies that were done of africanamericans 19 forties through fifties by Research Firms by the black newspapers they preferred large heavy buicks and oldsmobiles now well call them gas guzzlers these are not small cars. Africanamericans prefer large cars because they offered protection and hard to turn over the place to sleep if necessary to carry blankets or pillows and carry water for the radiator and those big heavy coolers full of food black motorist created a home away from home in the automobile. This is an ad for the buick alexa and it says all it lacks is a fireplace. [laughter] it was a heavy car and you could sleep in it if you needed to. When civil rights worker needed a car to travel to earl mississippi he chose the oldsmobile 88 it was large enough to enable him to stretch out on the front seat to respond immediately with the accelerator to enable him to get away this is a picture of the rocket 88 we know he died beside his car in his driveway shot by a sniper june 12, 1963. Africanamericans also saw it as class status. This is a cadillac on a harlem street africanamerican were prevented from purchasing houses you couldnt buy a house because your neighborhood was redlined and banks would not give you a mortgage so the car was the largest and most important purchase and there for africanamericans use disposable income to buy beautiful cars. You may have heard the stereotype all africanamericans bought cadillacs. They purchase cadillacs in exactly the same proportion and percentages white americans of 3 percent 3 percent of africanamericans purchase cadillacs that is the stereotyp stereotype. The preferred car was the buick or the oldsmobile. Traveling by car posed a paradox their freedom to travel but forced to say in segregated black neighborhoods. Now think for a minute what it was like for all americans before there were cars or the automobile . People generally stayed put. They didnt travel very far from their neighborhood they generally stayed in white neighborhoods by people state in black neighborhoods in some black and white people live sidebyside but the country was generally segregated by race. Think about what happens with the automobile. Not a crisscross the country traveling through white spaces to get to a safe black space one black to another black space. They had to go through a variety of white spaces where they were unwelcome. Signs, billboards, posters and objects that range from insulting to frightening. They asserted their rights to unfettered travel to go where they wanted when they wanted and that could be dangerous. Polansky for africanamerican travelers was psychologically and emotionally damaging this is just one example of those messages. This is a restaurant chain popular on the west coast near Salt Lake City and diners enter the restaurant through the mouth of the raccoon. So welcoming them to greenville texas the blackest land the whitest people. Of course there were hundreds of sundown towns in the United States and as africanamericans travel they were faced with towns that said if you are black you need to be out of town before sundown. And the communities were all over the United States many in the midwest, many in the west and the northeast. There is a great story of Thurgood Marshall who was standing on a train platform waiting for a train to shreveport and a man came up to him and said this is before Thurgood Marshall was the Supreme Court justice. And he said niggerboy what are you doing . Waiting for the train. Niggerboy be out of this town by sunset because none has ever spent the night in this town. Some africanamericans face all kinds of intimidation and real dangers when they travel. This is a fair in colorado i have to wonder why theyre wearing those outfits. They often depended on travel guides which was produced in new york city so how many of you have heard this . Many of you. How many of you heard of all the other dozens of travel guides that existed cracks there were many different travel guides for a variety of audiences. If you are part of a church group or a fraternity or sorority they had special housing for you. And there were travel guides as well but to be longlasting and the reason is because of their relationship with standard oil. Which is s o gas station owned by standard oil and they saw africanamericans as a market and they had enlightened selfinterest, these people have money in your like to get some of it so they had a policy of nondiscrimination at the gas stations because africanamericans very often preferred s o gasoline. So they gave away the green book and that told him to make that green book successful. The idea for the green book was based on the jewish appetite the very first issue of the green book that the jewish brother and gave him the travel guide. If you are a jewishamerican and traveling, we also needed to be concerned that very often if you call the hotel that your name was ruben you would say suddenly there is no rooms available. Jewish newspapers and jewish guides told you the places they could stay or observe the dietary laws. Greene really believed it was prejudice that if people went out across the country and from mark twain and victor green adopted that this is victor green of postal worker, and open the Green Publishing Company but what is so important is because victor green died 1960 and up company was then operated by ms. Green and for other women so it was a five woman operation and this is the business thats very unusual for women to go into publishing much like running a Publishing Company and then continues to run the Publishing Company until the late sixties victor green had a variety of ways to put in his green book with elma. One of the ways was by sending out book cards and letters for people who had good experiences traveling to send him information about the places that they stayed. The green book included gas stations hotels, Motels Restaurants ymca churches, doctors, beauticians and barbers and there was at least one article that might tell you about philadelphia and the things you could do and see or chicago usually geographically situated in calling you to places you may be welcome to visit. Also courting the black middle class to reflect the values about wealth and well mannered behavior. You can see that. We have a very charming middleclass couple with matching luggage, and you can see the suburban neighborhood in the background. The black middle class that could afford to travel and green shows up as the ideal couple. Over the course of the life of the green book content expanded from just new york and new jersey and connecticut to the entire east coast and then the entire United States and then all of north america finally Europe Africa and asia. That there were other travel guides like this one kisses the baltimore travel map that was a part of the s oh american newspaper. The travel guide and americans to name a few. You can also see the middle class in the upper righthand corner. Many of the places for either ymca or in the home of africanamerican families and women rented the rooms out to provide a Good Breakfast to prove on to have extra money you see the rock in the museum this is a leisure place to stay and the africanamericans it was run by april and Clayton Sinclair in the original environment. This is a place away from the beach, the beaches were segregated but you could go and stay for a week or two you could enjoy your meals apparently ever was a really good cook and cater to the White Community and the black community. There were other places to stay like kinsey court and are hot springs arkansas which was a motor hotel and perfect for the automobile you can park right outside the door. Most of the places were owned by africanamericans, but some are owned by white americans , that catered only two black people. Using advertisements from the green books also the same value in product offered for the establishment. Some of the folks that operate operated, clearly place themselves in the ad to show readers that they were black. And this grainy picture of Shenandoah National park they like to say you are always welcome at the National Park that they were always open to africanamericans. The problem was that all the facilities the hotels, restaurants were operated by private individuals to be discriminated so these are the grounds for negroes at the Shenandoah National park it took a long time for it to be fully integrated. I would like to talk for a few minutes about the role of the Civil Rights Movement. It was very important, the automobile. The key and pivotal role in the Civil Rights Movement you couldnt without the automobile. And clearly ties himself to doctor Martin Luther king its very important and dangerous and our White Community is that was concerned about king coming to your community. And as a jazz singer, coming back in birmingham after participation. This is the motel. That is bomb to provide spaces for civil rights workers and the Civil Rights Movement needed places to stay so they went south in the needed places to eat. And these places were the target of bombings some of those places were listed in the green book including the Lorraine Motel now consider how important it would be to have an automobile of your job was to travel around and register voters. To travel the entire county or the entire state and register voters. This is called the jenkins microbus. It is pretty marvelous and part of it is now in the african a museum on dash africanamerican museum and they can travel all over the state of alabama to register voters but also used as a school to train literacy so they can pass the literacy test and a haven for children and a meeting space. It was so important to put mobility trying to register voters and bring people into the Civil Rights Movement but the most significant use of the automobile they were all over the south you see mlk helping some women into a car so they can get to work. In order for them to bankrupt the montgomery system which was important for people to go to work and weve about the city the way they can move about the city was through the purchase of a fleet of automobiles was through the purchase of a fleet of automobiles purchase automobiles and people who already have them would have people continue to keep their jobs they could cut the bus revenue by 69 percent and still keep their jobs but only because they had an automobile to take people to work. So the automobile becomes a weapon and its key when they needed to get from the airport to the hotel the cabs were segregated. People fly into various cities with rent a car and that is their way how does the story and . In 1964 lbj past major civil rights legislation to extend Voting Rights and immediately those combinations are open to him africanamericans the sheridan and Howard Johnsons are open to africanamericans and because they can, they do echo those places so does the story and . Or does it remain an issue in america . And after being murdered in his automobile by a Minnesota Police officer in 2016 in minnesota. The officer was acquitted of manslaughter simply because he said he was afraid because of the color of his skin. This is a cartoon by Stuart Carlson for the sentinel and it is funny so i guess the question is are we still in this place . As the story ended or does it continue and how do we address the problem that we have now with africanamericans and the automobile . The green book went out of business and the black hotel irony those hotels gradually lose clientele and Large Chain Hotels flourish but the black hotels go out of business. Those dates are forever changed with the help of ordinary women to choose the automobile to travel as their weapon. Please raise your hand ask your question in the form of a question. Was that you . [laughter] my father was a photographer and i gave all my old home movies to rick and he printed them digitally. I was doing and exhibition in Saratoga Springs and a colleague of mine asked me if i ever heard of the green book and that was 20 years ago i never heard of it at that point and i was intrigued. But my graduate students was from chicago and copied it for me and that was my first green book. I started with that but then i realize it is much broader. Its really about the automobile and the way it changed africanamerican life so the story expanded from there. You said it was at the gas station for free . Some of them. Others were sold for a dollar