Spring Break brings excitement and anxiety to many of my students as some travel nationally and internationally...not long ago (and I would argue still today) taking a road trip in the United States was potentially very dangerous for people of color, Jews, African-American veterans, Civil Rights workers, etc.
Racial profiling, verbal insults, menacing stares, false arrests, physical violence, and lynching were a common experience...The Crisis magazine highlighted this problem for African-Americans in 1947:
"Would a Negro like to pursue a little happiness at a theater, a beach, pool, hotel, restaurant, on a train, plane, or ship, a golf course, summer or winter resort? Would he like to stop overnight at a tourist camp while he motors about his native land 'Seeing America First'? Well, just let him try!"
To help travelers navigate these difficulties, Victor H. Green, a World War I veteran from New York City published The Negro Motorist Green Book and Travel Guide from1936 to 1966...
"To give the Negro traveler information that will keep him from running into difficulties, embarrassments and to make his trip more enjoyable."
While The Negro Motorist Green Book (eventually selling around 15,000 per year) was intended to make traveling easier in Jim Crow America, Victor Green envisioned a time when such guidebooks would no longer be necessary...
"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. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication...for then we can go as we please, and without embarrassment."
"Black Mule" Video Clip (3:11)...Sundown Towns 2014
http://www.investigationdiscovery.com/tv-shows/injustice-files/videos/tennessee-the-black-mule.htm
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