Of philadelphia my name is andy director of author events. I do have one unfortunate update to our program rick burns will not participate in our discussion this evening due to a work related incident. However, the good news you will see a sneak preview of his new documentary which will be aired on pbs later this year and based on ten years of research by our guest. A curator with more than 30 years experience, doctor Gretchen Sorin has consulted with 250 institutions including smithsonian, Jewish Museum in the near state historical association. She is a director of the cooperstown drip program of the State University of new york and the author of in the spirit of martin, the living legacy of doctor Martin Luther king junior. And through the eyes of others, African Americans in identity and american art. In her new book draw th driving while black just out today professor soren tells the story of an an dispensable green book that reshaped the africanamerican traveling experience throughout our segregated land and help drive the civil rights movement. Please welcome Gretchen Sorin to the free library of philadelphia. [applause] thank you. Good evening. It is wonderful to be in the great city of philadelphia. I apologize that rick was not able to join us this evening, he had a little bit of an emergency and hes in italy but i hope that you will enjoy the preview of our film that he sent along. I am going to talk, im sure many of you have seen the green book movie and im going to talk this evening about a broader story, that story is about the automobile in the role that the automobile played in africanamerican lives. I would like you all to think of how important your mobility is to you, how important is it that you are 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 take for granted but if you think about the role that liberty and mobility played for africanamericans very much of american history, African Americans were prohibited from traveling freely. Travel in the idea of journey essential to the africanamerican experience. The ideal of the Middle Passage and enslavement begins a journey for africanamericans. It is central to what it means to be black in this country. But the idea of cattle is about forced travel. This is the past, and they save please let Benjamin Mcdaniel pass to doctor in virginia and return on monday or tuesday for mrs. Madison, june 1, 1843. So africanamericans traveling had to have passes information. Freedom is so important to many enslaved persons that they ran away they sold themselves and exercised their freedom movement. Excuse me, i have a five euro granddaughter and she gave me the kindergarten cold. The great migration and the journey for africanamericans in the story of the greatest Mass Movement of people in this countrys history. Seeking Job Opportunities in the north and fleeing racism and poverty in the south and as many as 7 million africanamericans left their home seeking refuge in subsidies of chicago, new york, detroit, new york where my parents moved in 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 want to, when you wanted became essential. It also came to mean the ability to avoid the indignity of the jim crow bust in 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 by customs and if you are 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 and is still the not know the rules of racial etiquette for example, particular driving etiquette was also expected. Africanamericans faced segregation in most aspects of public travel and accommodation in the south when it was over but in the north it was dictated by customs of buses, taxis, trains, hotels, beaches and any place the people gather. This is a Jim Crow Railroad car. Insulting, humiliating selfie as dependent on timetables. They were only supposed to ride in the south, many ran in the north as well and africanamericans, even if you purchased a firstclass ticket and was not expected to go into the jim crow car. This was columbia engulfed car in 1929. And you can see the word colored on the backseats the automobile gave africans freedom. It freed black travelers from the puny of the Jim Crow Railroad car in the freedom of movement and offer dignity. Africanamericans found that the segregated trains that gave them no dignity. Here is your own private rolling living room, if you are driving in your own car with private space that was protected, you are free from the segregated insult and free from listening to the bus driver to tell you to move to the back of the bus and you are freed from the railcar that might be right behind the engine. This is really an important change in africanamerican life, the automobile. By the 1950s with the interstate highway system upwardly mobile like family were able to travel and become travel consumers and they started to consume travel just as they consumed things like refrigerators and television and they use the dollars in their disposable income to purchase automobiles and campers and hotel rooms and restaurant meals. With her history of forced travel, it was important for the black middle class to travel for leisure. They chose to travel because they could. Often parents worked hard to make sure their children were not aware of the indignity that they faced, the children installed in the backseat of these cars were not always even aware of the indignity their parents faced nor were they aware of the danger that their parents faced on the road. If you think about the make and model of automobiles, the make and model is very much tied to identity. Africanamericans purchased large cars, we know this from Market Studies that were done of africanamericans that were conducted in the 1840s and 1950s by Research Firms for the black newspaper. Africanamerican motorists preferred large heavy buicks and automobiles, those cars that we would call gas guzzlers. These are not small cars, i think africanamericans preferred large cars because they offer protection, they were hard to turn over, they were a place to sleep if necessary, you can carry blankets and pillows and you can sleep in your car and you can carry water for the radiator an extra fan belt and you carry the big heavy coleman coolers full of food because you could not stop at a restaurant. Black motorist created a home away from home in their automobiles. This is an ad for the Buick Electra and it says all the electrolux is a fireplace. So the elector was a heavy car and you can sleep and if you needed to. When civil rights worker needed a car to travel to rural mississippi, he chose an oldsmobile rocket 88, the rocket was large enough to enable to stretch out on the front seat and it responded immediately if he hit the accelerator enabling him to get away from her pursuing car. This is a picture of the rocket 88. And we know that he died beside his car in his driveway shot by a sniper on june 12, 1963. Africanamericans also saw their automobile assemble class status. This is a cadillac on harlem street. Africanamericans were often prevented by discrimination from purchasing houses, you cannot buy a house because your neighborhood was redlined and banks would not give you a mortgage. And therefore the car became the largest and most important purchase and therefore africanamericans use their disposable income to buy beautiful cars and you heard the stereotype that all africanamericans fought cadillacs. Africanamericans purchase cadillacs in exactly the same proportion percentage as white americans, 3 of africanamericans purchase cadillacs. That is the stereotype that all africanamericans had those cadillacs. The preferred car was the buick in those mobile. But for africanamericans travel by car posed a paradox. Africanamericans had the freedom to travel but they were forced to stay in segregated black neighborhoods in segregated black Tourist Accommodation that would accept them. I would 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 do not travel very far at all from their own neighborhoods. White people generally stayed in white neighborhoods, black people generally stayed in black neighborhoods in some poor neighborhoods. I buy side but the country was segregated by race. Now think about what happened with the automobile. With their cars, africanamericans crisscross the country traveling through white spaces to get from a safe black space to another safe black space 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 face fines, billboards, posters and objects that range from insulting to frightening. They asserted their right to unfettered travel by going where they wanted, when they wanted and this could be dangerous. The landscape for africanamerican travelers was thought psychologically and emotionally damaging messages. This is just one example of those messages. This is a restaurant chain that was popular on the west coast and started in Salt Lake City and diners entered the restaurant to the giant kunz mail. This is the banner that walked under welcomed visitors to baucus land, the widest people. Of course there were hundreds of sundown towns in the United States and africanamericans traveled they were faced with towns that had signs that said if you are black, you needed to be out of town before sundown. In these communities were all over the United States, many, many in the midwest, many in the west and even a few in connecticut in the northeast. There is a great story that Thurgood Marshall told, he was standing on a train car a train platform waiting for a train and a man came up to him and said, this is before Thurgood Marshall was a Supreme Court justice when he was a lawyer for the naacp and the man said nager boy what are you doing in this town. He says i am waiting for the train and the man says you better be out of this town before sundown because the sun has never set with a nager in this town and thats a story that he tells in his autobiography. Some africanamericans face all kinds of intimidation and even real dangers when they travel. And this is a fair and colorado. I have to wonder why they were wearing these outfits on the first will. So africanamericans often depended on travel guides like the negro motorist green book which was produced in new york city. How many of you heard of the negro motorist green book, how many have you have heard of all the other dozen travel guide 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 were guides that found special housing for you, there were guys for show people in many different guides, the back of black newspapers, there were travel guides as well, the green book is the most longlasting of africanamerican travel guide and the reason it was so longlasting was because of their relationship with standard oil. Which is exxon gas stations. As was owned by standard oil and they saw africanamericans as a market and they had enlightened self interest and 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 sco gasoline and they gave away the green book and that helped Victor Greene to make his green book successful. The idea for the green book was based on jewish travel guide, Victor Greene writes in the very first issue of the green book that his jewish brother engaged in the idea for the travel gui guide. If you are a jewishamerican and traveling, you also needed to be concerned about places to stay and very often if you call the hotel and said your name was schwartz or ruben you would find that suddenly they had no rooms available. So jewish newspapers and jews guides the told you places you could stay in places you could observe the dietary laws. Green believes that travel was fatal to prejudice. He believed it people went out across the country it would help to defeat prejudice in this country and this is a quote from the innocents abroad. This is Victor Greene and his wife elma, he was a postal worker he open a business in harlem in the Green Publishing Company. What is so important in the reason i talk and show elma is because Victor Greene died in 1960 and the Green Publishing Company was operated by elma green and by four other women so it was a five woman operation and this was a business of Publishing Business that was unusual for women to be working in publishing in this time. Much less running a Publishing Company. But she continues to run the Publishing Company until late 1960s. Victor greene had a variety of ways of finding places to put in his green book and i have to make sure elma is in there. One of the ways is like sending out postcards and letters and asking his travelers people have good experiences traveling to send him information about the places that they stayed. The green book included gas stations and this one is in essence station, hotels, motels, restaurants, ymcas, churches, doctors, beauticians, barbers and an article, one article in each issue an article might tell you about philadelphia and the thing that you could do in c and philadelphia or it might tell you about chicago, usually or geographically situated and they told you the places where you might be welcome to visit. The green book also courted the black middle class. It reflects black middleclass values about light and well mannered behavior and here i think you can see that you have a very charming middleclass couple with matched luggage and you can see a 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 in 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 connecticut to the entire east coast and then the entire United States and then all of north america and finally to europe and asia. But there were other travel guides like this one, this is the baltimore travel map that was a part of the africanamerican newspaper. Other guides were called the go guide, travel guide, the travel guide and draws american to name a few. You can also see the middleclass with a couple playing golf in the upper righthand corner. Many of the places that were listed in the guide especially the early ones were either ymca dorm rooms were the homes of africanamerican families. So if you had an empty room or an extra room, women rented their rooms out and they provide a Good Breakfast as a way to make extra money for their families, this is a ymca room. This is the rock if any of you have visited the africanamerican museum in washington, d. C. , using the rock which was a leisure place to stay in kittery main, an africanamerican house that was run by hazel and Clinton Sinclair and this was the original environment. This is a place that was away from the beach, the beaches were segregated in court smith and kittery, you could go and you could stay for a week or two week and you could enjoy your meals, hazel was 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 vacancies court in hot springs arkansas which was a motor hotel and perfect for the automobile, you could park outside your 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 and they offer the same values and products that were offered for whites in parallel establishments. Some of the folks that operated these places clearly place themselves in the ad to show readers they were black. In this grainy picture is of she and enjoy National Park. I know the National Parks like to say that you are always welcome at the National Park in the National Parks were also open to africanamericans but the problem was all the parks facilities, the guesthouses, the hotels, the restaurants were operated by private individuals and they discriminated. So this is the picnic ground for negroes at shenandoah National Park. It took a long time for the National Park to be fully integrated. I would like to talk for a few minutes about the role of the automobile and the civil rights movement. It was really very important the automobile played a key and pivotal role in the civil rights movement. You cannot have it without the automobile. This is were supermarkets and where he is tying himself to doctor Martin Luther king jr. And its very important and very