Driving the Green Book : a road trip through the living history of black resistance

Author

Alvin D Hall

Call Number

• 973.0496 H1742 (CEN, EAS, OSH)

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Edition

First edition.

Publication Information

New York, NY : Harper One, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers [2023]

Physical Description

277 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Summary

An award-winning broadcaster and educator presents his experiences following the path of African Americans who traveled the country during the age of segregation using The Green Book, a guide which helped Black people travel safely.

"Join award-winning broadcaster Alvin Hall on a journey through America's haunted racial past, with the legendary Green Book as your guide. For countless Americans, the open road has long been a place where dangers lurk. In the era of Jim Crow, Black travelers encountered locked doors, hostile police, and potentially violent encounters almost everywhere, in both the South and the North. From 1936 to 1967, millions relied on The Negro Motorist Green Book, the definitive guide to businesses where they could safely rest, eat, or sleep. Alvin Hall sets out to revisit the world of the Green Book and finds people who had endured the dramatic challenges of that time. With his friend Janée Woods Weber, he journeys from New York to Detroit to New Orleans, visiting motels, restaurants, and stores where Black Americans once found a friendly welcome. They explore landmarks, from the theaters and clubs where stars like Duke Ellington and Aretha Franklin performed to the Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Along the way, Hall recalls his own experiences, and together they gather memories from some of the last living witnesses for whom the Green Book meant survival--remarkable people who not only endured but rose above the hate, building vibrant Black communities against incredible odds. Driving the Green Book is a vital work of national history as well as a hopeful chronicle of Black resilience and resistance"--

Contents

• Introduction
• The Green Book inventory : a man of a millions journeys
• The American highway : open road, open mind
• Visiting home : return from the Great Migration
• Jim Crow laws : slavery by another name
• Getting down to business : growing with the Black customer
• The magic hour : packing up and the protective dance
• Little Harlems : Black havens in the era of The Green Book
• Summer retreats : away from the white gaze
• We lived it
• The Green Book's legacy : doing what I can, where I am.