 Good afternoon, and welcome to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. I'm Colleen Chogan, the Archivist of the United States, and I'm pleased you could join us for today's talk about Driving the Green Book, a road trip through the living history of black resistance with its author, Alvin Hall. Before we begin, I'd like to tell you about two programs coming up later this month on our YouTube channel. On Thursday, June 15th, at 1.30 p.m., Matthew J. Claven will tell us about his book Symbols of Freedom, Slavery and Resistance Before the Civil War. Symbols of Freedom describes how enslaved people and their allies drew inspiration from the language and symbols of American freedom. And on Wednesday, June 21st, at 1 p.m., Andrew K. Dimer will discuss his new book, Vigilance, the Life of William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad. Still, an abolitionist who managed a critical section of the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia helped as many as 800 people escape enslavement. Next week, from June 17th to June 19th, the National Archives in Washington, D.C. will display both the Emancipation Proclamation and General Order No. 3. The Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln in January 1863, declared that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states to be free. General Order No. 3, issued by Galveston's Union Army Commander on June 19th, 1865, informed the people of Texas that all enslaved persons in the state were now free, two-and-a-half years after Lincoln's proclamation. Since then, the celebration of Juneteenth, a combination of June and 19th, spread from Texas to other states and is now a federal holiday. After the Civil War and into the 20th century, though, Jim Crow laws continue to deny black Americans full freedom of movement and participation in society. Restrictive laws and hostile communities made travel dangerous. To help black travelers navigate their way in safety, the Green Book pointed out trusted places to buy gasoline, eat meals, and sleep overnight. What had been an essential tool for African Americans on the road between 1936 and 1967 is now hardly known. Today's author, Alvin Hall, will share his modern-day explorations of the roots described in the Green Book and introduce us to a number of people who used the Green Book during the years the guide was published. Alvin Hall is an award-winning television and radio broadcaster, author, and financial educator. His numerous radio programs include The Tulsa Tragedy that Shamed America and Jay-Z from Brooklyn to the Boardroom. For five years on the BBC, he hosted the highly rated and award-winning series Your Money or Your Life. Now let's hear from Alvin Hall. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you. I am very glad to be here to talk about my journey with the Negro Motorist Green Book. It might surprise people to find out that my journey with the Green Book actually began on an airplane. On one of my trips to London, I opened a magazine and saw an article about summer travel. And in this article, it mentioned the Negro Motorist Green Book, a publication I had never heard of. And I always like to say, and I am a well-educated black man, and I didn't know about this. So I decided to explore the existence of this magazine or this publication when I got back to New York City. I went to the Schaumburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. And to my surprise, I found the largest collection of the Negro Motorist Green Book in America. And from this slide, you'll see the various covers. It evolved from being the Negro Motorist Green Book to being the Negro Traveler's Green Book to being the Traveler's Green Book, a guide for travel and vacation over the years. This publication was founded in 1936 by Victor Hugo Green and his wife, Alma, at the time they lived in Harlem. And they would go south to Richmond during the summers to visit Alma's family. And during that period of time, they would find aggravations and frustrations and embarrassments during their drive south. They could not stop at a restaurant. They could not use a bathroom at a service station. And there were also gas stations that would not serve them gasoline. Rather than just succumbing to this, Victor decided to create a publication that he and his friends could use to avoid these aggravations and embarrassments on the road. So he founded this publication by first talking to his friends, many of whom traveled around New England. And he managed to put together a list starting in New England in 1936 of all of the places where black people could find safe harbors and welcoming services over that period of time. The publication came out every April and May of every year. So you could put it in your glove compartment when you went on your drives or your holidays and you could use it to find safety and the services that you wanted on the road as an African American. As you can tell from this picture, Victor's organization was also very progressive for that period of time. His staff was all women, all women who helped him create his vision along with Alma. Of course, when I got the green book and it was spread out on the table in front of me, I started to go through the green book and to look at all the ads. Remember it was a state by state city by city listings and over the years, it would expand to be able to accompany this type of advertising. And I chose these for a specific reason. You have the Linux lounge, which was located in Harlem at 288 Linux Avenue for many, many years, even during my time in New York City. You have on the left Vernon Shaky Terry's ESO station. The ESO stations are very important in the history of the green book. They were the only nationwide gas stations that carried the green book. And this ties back to the Rockefeller. We need to remember that ESO was owned by Standard Oil at the time. And the Rockefeller family had been involved very much in abolition movement years back. And so it's not surprising that they would be much more progressive, not only in giving blacks the opportunity to own franchises of the service station, but also to work at that company. But all of the information in the green book existed before. And as this little clip will illustrate from a letter written to Victor, it talks about the network that existed before as automobile travel increased. It's a great pleasure for me to give credit for credit is due. Many of my friends have joined me in admitting that the Negro motorist green book is a credit to the Negro race. It is a book badly needed among our race since the advance of the motor age, realizing the only way we knew where and how to reach our pleasure resort was in a way of speaking by word of mouth until the publication of the Negro motorist green book with our wishes for your success and your earnest effort. Respectfully, William Smith. He mentions word of mouth. So prior to all of this information being gathered in the green book and several competing publications, people dependent upon word of mouth. You have sororities, fraternities, the masons, other groups of professional people who when they had to travel for work for conventions or other meetings would call up a friend or talk to somebody in their community who had done that route before and they would pass this information along. And people I interviewed during my road trips always talked about the power of this word of mouth network, how it kept people safe. And this is what Victor was capturing in the pages of the green book. Here, you'll also see other places listed in Chattanooga, noticed in the lower right. You even have a high end resort like Oak Bluffs in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, being advertised in the green book. So it covered a broad group of businesses. Now, just like everyone else, when I first saw the green book, the first place I looked was the town nearest where I was born, Tallahassee, Florida. And look what I discovered. There was the Abner Virginia Motel on Bragg Drive. I was raised south of Tallahassee. I went there many, many times in my life and I never recall even seeing this place. So I decided to drive by there at the beginning of my first road trip in order to see this place. And here is what the Abner Virginia looked like today. It is in a wooded area, the original place where you would drive in has been demolished and now it's mostly used for section eight housing. But you still get a sense of what it looked like even back in those days with the live oak trees and the moss hanging from it. While I was in Tallahassee, I also discovered another place that I didn't know about in French town, which was the black area of Tallahassee when I was growing up. There's Tuk's house. This was an example of a tourist home that was listed in the Green Book. Tourist homes were privately owned houses where people would take in people overnight, very much an early example of Airbnb or a bed and breakfast. And Tuk's house still exists there. I think James Baldwin stayed there when he came to give a talk at Florida A&M University. And outside there, there is a plaque honoring the Tuk's. And you see that this type of honoring is increasing across America. So this was my introduction to driving the Green Book. Just so happens that a producer named Jeremy Grange in Wales in the UK had also come across the Green Book. And by the time I got back to America and started doing my research, Jeremy called me and I immediately called him back because he was interested in doing a BBC program on the Green Book. I said, put my name on this program. And it was commissioned by the BBC back in 2016 before the movie came out. In constructing a journey for this one episode program of about 38 minutes, we decided to do a trip through time and space. The space would be from Tallahassee, Florida, near where I was born, following the historic civil rights route through Montgomery, Selma, Jackson, and Memphis, and ending in Ferguson, Missouri. The time was from my past because I was born in segregation south of Tallahassee, Florida, into the current events surrounding Michael Brown's death in Ferguson. So we were really following what had happened over that period of time to get a sense of what people were thinking about history and as it relates to current events. So Jeremy Grange and I did this trip over five days and it was a revelation. This program, which aired on the BBC, was one episode. And in my soul, I knew there was more there to be seen. So I decided to create a second idea. And this idea was for a podcast. And I was looking around for some great way or some connection to tie this to the Green Book. And I recalled an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art where they had an infographic that captured my attention. It showed the increase in the population of northern cities as a result of the Great Migration. Many people moved north to seek more opportunities in the burgeoning automobile industries and other industries of north. But another reason that people left was terrorism. The hanging, drowning and dragging of black people and sharecropping all of the financial hardships that came with that. So as people left the south, they moved north. And if you look at the chart that's on the screen, you'll see something very interesting. In 1910, Detroit had an African-American population of approximately 61.2% of the total. By 1970, the African-American population of Detroit was 43.7% of the total. If you look at those two sides, you can see that it was the largest increase within any northern city. And that gave me the idea of for the second road trip. This would be a road trip from Detroit where many black people had moved during the Great Migration south to the states that they would have come from. Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, the Florida Panhandle, and finally New Orleans. So over 12 days, driving 2,021 miles and doing approximately 40 interviews, we took that trip. I put this slide up there because I think it's really important for us to remember that not only did people move north to for better job opportunities to earn much more money than they had earned during sharecropping, but also there was all of this terrorism throughout the south. And at the Equal Justice Initiative at the National Memorial to Peace and Justice, they've captured the dirt from places where people were subject to terror killings. And this was an early display of that and focusing on Alabama. It was very, very moving when you look at all of the different shades of the dirt that was in these yards, which in many ways reminded me of the shades of all of the different black people in America and how no one was exempt from terrorism during that period of time. So for this road trip from Detroit to New Orleans, I borrowed this map, which was in USA Today, which showed the various ways you could do that trip. Of course, we had to shoot our trip like a movie. And on this trip, I was joined by my associate producer and great friend, Janay Woods-Weber, and a field producer who would record the interviews and help organize the trips in advance, Oluwakeme Alaudesuyi. I chose these two people for very specific reasons. I was born in the deep south during segregation. So many of these, many of the things we were likely to encounter on this trip would be familiar to me. And I had a deep roots in the south. Janay, on the other hand, is by racial, she has a white mother and a black father. She was raised in a community largely white in Massachusetts. And there, as she said, she knew the bullet points of black culture, but not in detail. So she would bring a different perspective to the information that we learned and the interviews that we were doing. Kemmi was born in London, raised in Nigeria, and moved to America, to Illinois, when she was a child. So she came from outside of America and had none of that history. I wanted us during the drives between interviews to have deep discussions about what we heard, what we felt, what we thought. How was it affecting us? Because that was going to influence how I wrote about the material in the book. I wanted the book to appeal to a lot of people who didn't know this history, but I wanted it to connect to them emotionally. Black person driving a car that was perceived as an affront to the Jim Crow customs, to the idea of African Americans being almost a separate caste in Southern society. So in many cases, African Americans might travel with a chauffeur's cap in the car or even wearing a chauffeur's cap so that it would appear as if they were driving for a white person rather than driving independently or autonomously. And it's very interesting those contradictions because, of course, it was certainly okay for an African American man to serve as a chauffeur or a driver for a white family. But for a Black man to own his own car was perceived as being something that was kind of against those laws of segregation. That interview with Allison Hobbs, a professor at Stanford University, was in the back of our minds when we started this trip. We wondered, what could happen on the road? What echoes of the past would we encounter? And unbeknownst to me, Janae was so concerned about this, she did most of the driving, that every day she would check the car to make sure we didn't have any broken taillights. So there would be no reason for police to stop us on the way. But interestingly, we never talked about this fear. We talked about just, we referenced it, I think, in our behavior. But we were often, I think, afraid that if we said it, it might become a reality. So we started in Detroit. And on that first stop in Columbus, Ohio, we met the most amazing person, Mary Ellen Tyus. And she introduced me to a world I knew nothing about, the world of high-end resorts for African-American during segregation and Jim Crow. She had, from the time she was born, been going to Idlewild, Michigan. Her grandmother had gone there. Her mother had gone there. And now her children are going there. This is one of those resorts that was referred to as the Black Eden. It was so remarkable. And she talked about what was a perfect day at this resort. They would be completely away from the white gaze. All of the concessions were owned by Black people. All everybody around them were Black people. So no one there was likely to be Jim Crowed, a term I learned during my interview with her. And here is what the place looked like. It was quite magical. Once I learned about this, I then discovered that there were these other locations all across America. There is Fox Lake in Angola, Indiana. There's Oak Bluffs in Martha's Vineyard. There is Highland Beach in Maryland. And there was American Beach in Florida. All of these places were places where Black people went, typically during the summers, to get away from the prejudice, to enjoy themselves, to have fun with other Black people. Ironic when I found out about this place, I discovered that friends of mine, two of them have recently begun looking at and one actually bought a place. And this is a picture from Highland Beach, the one that was started by Frederick Douglass' son. And this was so meaningful to me, this particular picture, when I saw it. Because one of the things that everyone talked about during my entire road trip was how African-American parents sought to protect their children from the prejudices that were in the broad society. This was one of the most profound things that I learned along the way. And it made me reflect on how my parents had protected me from the racism. Although I was raised in segregation, much of the horror of it, I really didn't know. This was one of the best lessons I've ever learned. And I have a quote about this, a little passage about this. My grandfather would say to me, things as a child, he said, whenever a white person comes up to you, don't look them in the eye. You always say yes, sir. You always say no. There were these strategies that you had to adopt to stay safe. And my grandfather was a proud man. He was a smart man. But in the presence of white people, he would become this something else that was deeply painful for him. Because he wants to model something for me. At the same time, he wants to keep us safe. And it's that duality, that burden that I think few people understand. That is Brian Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. And that statement was so true across the board. Everyone talked about how the parents loved their children, sought to model them, but also didn't want them to be captured in the hatred of racism. They wanted their children to strive to become educated, to achieve things that they had not been able to achieve themselves. And that's why, although this started out to be a road trip, in reality, at the end of the trip, I couldn't do a pure road trip program because there was so much humanity. There was so much history. There was so much personal experiences and grace that needed to be captured, the emotional connection to that history, so that people would understand and hear the lived stories of these people. I wanted to capture their voices in the podcast. As we drove from Detroit to New Orleans, one of the themes that came up was Little Harlins. I have a chapter in the book called Little Harlins. These were the main streets where Black people gathered, where there were thriving businesses within the Black communities across America. There was Jefferson Street in Nashville. There was Walnut Street in Louisville, Ferris Street in Jackson, Mississippi, and the Avenue, Jefferson Davis Avenue, now Martin Luther King Boulevard in Mobile, Alabama. Every city had one of these places called Little Harlem, and they were very active. They weren't the slums or the threatening places that you see portrayed in many movies. They were really places of glamour, of success, of pride, of dignity. A quote. It was difficult. Most times, Black families traveled safe routes, and you were very cautious. Cautious from where you stopped when and how you present yourself. You traveled during the day. You tried to get to where you were going before nightfall, because the least little thing could trigger violence. Saying was, you know, Negroes, they used the N word then, were not supposed to be caught in those towns, you know, after sundown. Now my dad would tell us when we were driving up through North Mississippi. He's the other little town called Duck Hill, and he didn't go to those places. He would always say in Duck Hill, he said they tired and feathered a Black man. Those are quotes from some of the people that we spoke to along the trip who talked about their on-the-road experiences. When they left these communities, these Little Harlems, where they were safe, when they went out on the road, that's where they became vulnerable. That's where they had to implement travel skills and thought that would help them to survive on the road. When I talked to young people, young people are particularly surprised to find out that you couldn't stop at any service station and buy gas because they might not serve you, that you couldn't just buy food anywhere. It wasn't available. Those were the rules of segregation out of sight, out of mind. So these Little Harlems were the safe places. When people left those little Harlem, that's where the danger occurred. And one of the dangers was accidentally stopping at night in a sundown town. Sundown towns are basically these communities where African Americans are not permitted to be after sundown. If you are caught there, then you were harassed. You could be put in jail. You could be treated, violently treated as a result of it. And many people think that because the South was known for its virulent racism, that sundown towns were characteristics of the South. That was not true. They are much more of a Northern phenomenon. Indiana, Ohio, Detroit had sundown suburbs. Long Island had sundown communities across the North. There were all these communities where African Americans could not be after dark. And how were these policies put in place by the police? The local police would look for African Americans in these communities and then harass them if they were there. And so now you can see some of that behavior. Today some of these sundown communities still exist, but now it's treated silently. So what happened to all of these little Harlems? Here is what we discovered. In town after town where there's not been the will of people to keep up these communities, many of them have been abandoned. And in some cases all of the land may be owned by a city or local developer who seems to leave it to benign neglect. This is Farage Street. And here's another one. This is also on Farage Street. And we have a little clip here to talk about this. Well, this street was, I guess you can call it a safe place, a safe haven for African Americans. Two blocks east, west, north, everywhere you go. It was the white section of town where black folks couldn't go. Everything on Farage Street, however, was built by freed slaves, no architectural degrees, no major education. They built their own buildings, made their own businesses, their own clothing stores, their own fire department, their own restaurants, drug joints, all happened right here on Farage Street. It was like, in fact, it was called Little Harlem. The train station is two blocks over. When folks get off the train, they come straight to Little Harlem. And the streets was packed. The streets were packed all the time. And look at it today. It's no longer packed. We had about three theaters around Farage Street. We had the Amit, the Alamo, the Book of Tea. And we had one on another street that was black businesses and Jackson was on next street. So on that street, there were bother shops and grocery stores and novelty shops and cafes and juke joints. One of the joys of doing this road trip is meeting these people and sharing and hearing their stories and their different accent. It really was quite emotional for me as I went from town to town to meet people who had wonderful stories, but to hear the varied accents of African Americans across the South was one of those joys that lives in my heart today. Many of the places, this is what you will find. As a result of the building of the interstate highway system, many of the businesses that had been featured in the Green Book became isolated. And as a result of imminent domain and other local practices, they were destroyed. In this case, this was Summers Inn and Subway Lounge. And if you look at this sign, you'll notice that this place was destroyed in 2004. So in many communities, these places managed to last quite a bit, but then business went south and therefore they tore down the buildings. And this is what remains very similar to Tuk's house in Tallahassee. Now, one of the things on these little streets that usually survived were barbershops, beauty shops, the occasional cafe, and the funeral home. And we were so lucky in Jackson that we met this guy on the street who was delivering flowers, and he told us about Collins Funeral Home and the fact that Mr. Collins was there. So this is a clip about what we discovered about the funeral home. This funeral home is the oldest Black funeral home that's totally owned by Blacks in Jackson. And there's only one second oldest funeral home in the state of Mississippi. There's only one minute that's owned by Blacks and that's Jefferson and Vicksburg. And this has been there at the same location all these years? It started across the street and it came from over there. Mr. Collins is over there. You can talk to him if you want to. That would be great to talk to. So here I am thinking, what do I do? I don't know anyone in this town. I didn't have a green book, but I had been taught something by my parents about what you do when you're stranded in a place where you don't know anyone. See if there's a Black funeral home, call them and see if you can stay at the funeral home. I did that. I asked some Blacks on the street, you know, there's a Black funeral home there. They told me there was. So I called the funeral home and the funeral home owner told me that I could come and stay. I told me who I was that I was a teacher. But that was the kind of thing that our parents taught us about how we needed to be flexible and what things we could do when we were traveling if we got on a predicament like that. That happens to me. If you want to sleep in, that's fine. Because I tell you what, them people back there ain't gonna bother you. That's one thing you can rest assured. If they don't bother you out there, these back here sure not gonna bother you. And I've been here over 50 years and nobody's ever bothered me. That was Mr. Collins, the owner of the funeral home and the guy before him was Jerome Gray, who is an activist who lives outside of Montgomery, Alabama. I love this sequence because most people don't realize that the funeral homes were a safe harbor. If you got stuck someplace, you could find a respite, a place to lay your head, if you will, in a funeral home and survive for the night. When we got to Alabama, especially Birmingham and Montgomery, we discovered some wonderful places of fellowship that no longer exist, or in some cases that are being repaired. And one of the ones was the Benmore Hotel. This is on South Jackson Street. And this has the advantage of being one of the highest points in Mississippi. At the top was the Starlight Lounge. And here I think in this clip, Jerome Gray talks about this hotel. Where there have been barriers, Blacks have found ways to get around those barriers and really have fun in a way, because these places that were cited in the Green Book, those places really became wonderful places for Blacks to go to and meet, not just to travel, but it became a social gathering site. It's like the Benmore Hotel. I became bewitched by the Benmore Hotel. It is quite an amazing place. It is largely abandoned today, as you can see. There is one business still there. But we also recorded some people who had been there. I wanted there to be some memories about the Benmore Hotel, both in the book and in the podcast. A regular meeting place for civil rights activists in Montgomery was listed in the Green Book, the Benmore Hotel. And it is still there. It looks as if it's about four stories tall, a brick built edifice planted squarely on the corner of High Street and South Jackson, occupying probably a quarter of a block. The sign is still there, Benmore Hotel and Majestic Cafe. But the business is long gone. And it's a little hard to imagine, given all of the bars and chains and lots that are currently on the doors. But this was once a really glamorous place. It was nice, nicely furnished. Downstairs was the Majestic Cafe. And it had opaque, embossed windows. Dr. Gwen Patton and Jerome Gray were both active in the Civil Rights Movement and both have fond memories of the hotel. It was a wonderful place to meet and to fellowship. And the other thing, it had the distinction for being one of the tallest buildings in Montgomery. So Benmore Hotel really gave you a bird's eye view of Montgomery. They had an elevator called, his name was Cat Wilde. And you ride the elevator all the way up to the roof. And that was called the roof. And you could dance and they had live music and we could buy your elevations and roof stories. Absolutely grand. Since doing this program, I discovered that when Ike and Tina Turner were on their tour on the Chittolin Circuit, they played at the top of this hotel. One of those little things you discover, one of those little gifts that come your way when you're doing this thing like this, in this hotel is a barbershop, the Malden Brothers Barbershop. And I just love this picture. I wish the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture could go in and just take this out because so many of us remember getting our hair cut in places like this. We remember the conversations that occurred and the memorabilia and history that the people who cut hair there embodied. But the Malden Brothers Barbershop is also important for another reason. It was where Martin Luther King got his hair cut. And Nelson Malden was one of the people that I spoke to. And here's a clip about that we did in this barbershop. This is the last remaining business in the hotel, the Malden Brothers Barbershop. And you walk in and the first sign you see is colored waiting room. It's quite amazing. And then on the other wall, you have all of the pictures of his clients, people whose hair he's cut over the years. I can honestly say, like everybody would say, if the walls could top, you know, we had no more than what we know, you know? Which chair was his? The first chair right here. His chair, and that's where he used to sit. And this is where he cut Martin Luther King's hair. And this chair right here. This chair right here, that's right, the very one. So he came in the shop, like most New Customs, what was the name? He said, Martin Luther King. I said, where are you from? He said, Atlanta, Georgia. So if I finish cutting his hair, I gave him the mirror, say like this hair cut, and he said, pretty good. So you know, you tell a barber pretty good. That's kind of an insult. But he came back two weeks later and I was busy when another Bible was breaking, but he waited on me. So I remember that side cast this statement he had made. I said, that must have been a pretty good haircut. He said, you all right. Despite segregation and all this, people had great stories and fun memories to share. Here we are in Memphis, Tennessee. And I just put this up to show you the difference between Tallahassee, Florida, one listing in Tallahassee, Florida, and the many listings that were in Memphis, Tennessee. There were actually more pages than this, but I just wanted to show you that every city was different and how they presented the ads in the Green Book was very important. Of course, any Green Book stop could not tour, could not be complete without a stop at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. The Lorraine Motel is iconic. Not only was the place where Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, but it has also become the National Civil Rights Museum and people take pilgrimages there all the time. It's one of those places that was saved. It shows how the community pulled together after the assassination of Martin Luther King to save the Lorraine Motel. It was the African American community who led this, led by local people who were trusted by the community, who helped save this iconic motel. And across America, now, we're watching this sort of desire to save these places, to not let them go to ruin, come reach fruition. Another one that we went to was the A.G. Gaston Motel in Birmingham, Alabama. Look at this place. It has a sort of Frank Lloyd Wright feel and it was elegant. And we met this wonderful lady who's in charge of the restoration in Birmingham. And she talked about A.G. Gaston, what an entrepreneur he was, how when he saw a need in the African America, he'd create a business to meet that need. And as a result, he became a millionaire. Not only did he own the A.G. Gaston Motel, but he owned a penny savings bank. He owned an insurance company. He owned a funeral home. He owned a construction company. And that construction company is now responsible for the restoration of the A.G. Gaston Motel. And they're trying to take it back to the Splendor. And these were some pictures that we took along this trip. And we took this specific picture because upstairs was known as the War Room. This is where Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, where Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, Ralph Abernathy, and many leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, would meet to plan out various actions in Birmingham. And this hotel was bombed as a result of that, of their meeting there. People, this was during a period when Birmingham was known as Bombingham following the notorious death of four young women at the 16th Street Baptist Church. Of course, we had to go to Selma. And as a black person, I had to walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. And as I walked across the bridge, so many thoughts came to mind. But this clip, I think, is really important for us to think about. Every year in its introduction to the Green Book, Victor Green wrote that, there will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States. With the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, it seemed that the Green Book would no longer be needed by black travelers. Yet there are many people who feel that the Green Book, or something like it, is still needed today. That quote has stayed in my mind. And I was lucky enough near the end of the trip to meet the wonderful Hank Sanders, who had been a member of the Alabama Legislature, the first African American elected since Reconstruction. And he shared many, many memories with us. But there's a story that stays with me. He was a part of that march from Selma to Montgomery. And he was a part of the group that was there when Martin Luther King asked the question, how long? And the group would respond, not long. He would ask again, how long? Asking about how long before we have civil rights. And the group would answer, not long. I asked Hank Sanders, what would he say to Martin Luther King today if King were alive and asked him how long? And he said, I would say to Dr. King that I did not know you were talking biblical years. That Hank admits that he underestimated the depth of white supremacy in America. He thought five or 10 years, everybody would have equal rights. Everybody would have the right to vote. That all the challenges that were associated with getting civil rights would be over. And he said at the very end of that, but Dr. King gave his life for the cause. And Hank said that he would continue to fight until his life was done. When people travel during this period of time, they created pleasures for themselves. They played games. Black people bought big cars so they could be comfortable on the road. There's all this myth surrounding the types of cars that black people bought. But we had to buy big cars because if you had children, you wanted them to be able to sleep on the bench seats because you couldn't stop at a hotel. You wanted to have some power in case you needed to get away from a difficult situation. But it was the food that was a common memory, those shoebox lunches. Everybody talked about the fried chicken, the tea cakes, the deviled eggs made without mayonnaise, the drinks that they had on the road. So at the very end of the trip in New Orleans, Jenae Woods-Weber and I had to go to, well, there's a clip here, I'm going to skip that, had to go to Dookie Chase. It was a joy, a total joy for us to be able to go to there. And what we did, we not only had created our own version of the shoebox lunches, but we also had the wonderful experience, the absolutely wonderful experience of going to a place that had been listed in the green book at the same location for year after year after year. It was a survival. And that's what we took away from this entire experience, that African-Americans survived. Yes, there were horrible things that happened during that period of time. There's no denying that at all. But African-Americans did not allow themselves to be captured by that evil, captured by that darkness, many through humor, but largely through grace found themselves through that period of time and were able to build better lives for themselves as well as their families. And as I end this lecture before I take any questions, I'm going to give the last word here to Brian Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative. That Black people have had to create mechanisms for survival is an indictment of America, but it also is a testament to people of color that we have found ways to cope and survive and navigate this incredibly unfair and complex world. So the green book and a lot of other things like it were the tools that people used to navigate. Black people had to visit families and friends who were not nearby, so that meant they had to use transportation just like everybody else. So to have a guide, to have a mechanism, to have a source book that would help you navigate that was really important. In every city along the way from Detroit to New Orleans, Detroit, Columbus, Louisville, Kentucky, Nashville, Memphis, Jackson, Birmingham, Montgomery, Mobile, and finally New Orleans, we met people who shared their rich experiences and I believe wanted me to pass on their wisdom, their courage, and their strength to my readers the way they had passed it on within their families and communities. These people survived and one interview still affects me. It was with Frank Figgers in Jackson, Mississippi and it's the interview I had to get up and leave because I just, it just went through me. His voice was like the voice of my uncles near Tallahassee, Florida, who would always speak with such intention because they wanted to give me the wisdom, to give me the skills to survive, whether it was the historic patterns of getting up early in the morning, if you were taking a trip to get on the road and make sure you got to your destination before sundown, to make sure that you had food packed, that you had been careful about on the, what happens on the road, but also how do you make your life better where you are? And I always think of this quote by Frank Figgers, probably every day and certainly when I look at my book, do what you can with what you have where you are in order to make a better life and a fair deal. Frank Figgers gave me a great gift in that statement and I will always be thankful because it is telling each of us to do something, to be active, to do what you can to make life better where you are, the way Victor did when he and Alma created the Green Book, the way each of these businesses did in these towns. If you think about this, the Green Book is a history of Black entrepreneurship, of Black resistance and of Black resilience at a time when there were so many social strictures on America. Black people were able to create their version of the African American, of the American dream despite segregation and Jim Crow. Now I'll check to see if we have any chats here and here we have a copy of the book jacket. I also have given you the image of the podcast series and there's a link to the podcast so you will know more about that if you want to listen to the episode of the podcast and there is a bonus episode available. I've also done a documentary movie that's literally driving the Green Book on Long Island. One of the things that we found out was that many people did not believe that there was prejudice in the North that it could not have been in the South but just looking at sundown towns on Long Island and those memories that's really important to recall. I'm going to look at now the chats see if we have any questions. Are there any current projects in these old communities, revitalization and others? Yes there are. In Thomasville, Georgia for example, I know they're trying to restore one of the motels that were listed in the Green Book and I recently read that in West Virginia they are past local communities are looking at Green Book locations trying to give them historic designation and trying to help restore them wherever possible. Clearly as the knowledge of the importance of the Green Book comes out as a historic tool that enable people to negotiate these difficult times and survive these difficult times with dignity and joy more and more people want to focus on saving this part of American history. When I talk about the Green Book one of the things that people always assume was that when I wrote the book was going to be full of negativity you know all the dark things of course dark things happen but I wish when you read the book you notice the humor how people talk about these situations and the grace that they show. Race is the key word. I think we have no questions left so if there are no more questions I will end this. Thank you all for attending. I hope you learned something from this today. Hope it inspired you in some way and I hope that everybody will look for and learn more about the Negro Motorist Green Book and it's amazing history in America.