As people hit the roads this Labor Day weekend, perhaps heading off for a short vacation at summer’s end or to visit relatives, I remember Jim Crow-era journeys taken by my family and their friends who “traveled while black.”
The memories were probably stirred up by recent warnings from the NAACP about the dangers for black folks traveling in Missouri, combined with having just done some traveling of my own, by plane and bus. Most people are probably familiar with the term “Driving While Black,” abbreviated as DWB, which refers to the racial profiling of black drivers (which can also be extended to other groups of color). I’ve written about it here in the past, and there is a plethora of data that backs up the meme.
When I think back over my childhood experiences, what stands out the most for me is that I truly enjoyed all the traveling by car we did as a family, and I never thought that my experiences at the time, or those shared by my parents and their black friends, were different than those of other people who do not share my complexion. What was “normal” in the eyes of a child may not have been the norm for you—if you are not black or brown.
Join me on those journeys.
When I was 4 years old in 1951, my family was living on the campus of an Historically Black College (HBCU) now known as the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, in segregated Princess Anne, Maryland. My dad was teaching there and we lived in a suite in the boys dormitory. Dad came in one evening and announced to my mom that we had several carloads of company who were coming to spend the night. They were Duke Ellington’s band members. My mom had to scurry around to find pillows and blankets, and check to see if any of the students in the dorm had spare beds. They came in tired but laughing, and I remember falling asleep to the sound of boisterous conversation. When I woke up the next morning, they had already gone.
I didn’t think it was odd at the time. Looking back, I know now that there was no Negro motel nearby. We had company that “dropped in” quite frequently. They were travelers who needed a place to stay on their way to get home, to a gig, or to visit relatives somewhere farther South.
Negotiating places to stay and safe routes to take were a tricky proposition for black travelers. Those who traveled in large groups, whether they were in jazz bands or were players in Negro League teams, faced difficulties in finding accommodations, or simply places to stop and eat or use a restroom.
White folks could simply get maps and travel guides and head on off to get where they were going. Black folks often had to use “The Green Book.”
The New York Public Library has an extensive collection of Green Books.
From the Introduction to the 1949 edition:
With the introduction of this travel guide in 1936, it has been our idea to give the Negro traveler information that will keep him from running into difficulties, embarrassments and to make his trips more enjoyable.The Jewish press has long published information about places that are restricted and there are numerous publications that give the gentile whites all kinds of information. But during these long years of discrimination, before 1936 other guides have been published for the Negro, some are still published, but the majority have gone out of business for various reasons.In 1936 the Green Book was only a local publication for Metropolitan New York, the response for copies was so great it was turned into a national issue in 1937 to cover the United States. This guide while lacking in many respects was accepted by thousands of travelers. Through the courtesy of the United States Travel Bureau of which Mr. Chas. A. R. McDowell was the collaborator on Negro Affairs, more valuable information was secured. With the two working together, this guide contained the best ideas for the Negro traveler. Year after year it grew until 1941. "PM" one of New York's great white newspapers found out about it. Wrote an article about the guide and praised it highly. At the present time the guide contains 80 pages and lists numerous business places, including whites which cater to the Negro trade.There are thousands of first class business places that we don't know about and can't list, which would be glad to serve the traveler, but it is hard to secure listings of these places since we can't secure enough agents to send us the information. Each year before we go to press the new information is included in the new edition.When you are traveling please mention the Green Book, in order that they might know how you found their place of business, as they can see that you are strangers. If they haven't heard about this guide, ask them to get in touch with us so that we might list their place.If this guide has proved useful to you on your trips, let us know. If not, tell us also as we appreciate your criticisms and ideas in the improvement of this guide from which you benefit.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 wherever we please, and without embarrassment. But until that time comes we shall continue to publish this information for your convenience each year.
For more background, read “The Negro Motorist Green Book --Helping People of Color Travel More Safely During Jim Crow,” “Carry Your Green Book—You May Need It,” and “These Jim Crow-Era Guides for Black Travelers Are Sadly Still Relevant.”
My memories of traveling by car through the south with my family are fond ones. They only seem odd now that I am an adult and have shared them with friends who are white.
I didn’t realize that most people did not travel with a “porta-potty” in their car. As a kid I thought it was great because I used to get annoyed with my mom who had to make frequent stops/detours to use the bathroom. When we lived in New York City, she knew the location of every bathroom in the department stores. But when we headed south in the car, en route to family or to one of daddy’s new jobs, my mom never slowed us down—because we had that potty in the back seat. My kid brother and I would giggle about it. We never realized it prevented us from having to find a place to go, instead of having to pee by the side of the road. When most people think of Jim Crow, they imagine “separate” accommodations, and often forget or don’t realize that in many places there were no accommodations for “coloreds.”
My “job” during our journeys was “co-pilot.” My mom had zero sense of direction so pretty early on my dad trained me to read maps, and I sat up front with him. As we crossed the Mason-Dixon Line I learned to play the “minus 10” game. We’d drive through a town and I’d alert my dad to the speed limit—minus 10. Driving below the speed limit to prevent being targeted by local cops and pulled over was par for the course. I never realized the “why” of the math game we played.
Our map routes were interesting. They were plotted based on people rather than historic sites or parks. Before starting the journey—a drive from Maryland to Louisiana, for example—dad and my mom would pick out the locations where people they knew lived along the way. They were frequently friends they had gone to school with, scattered across the south teaching at HBCUs. Sometimes they were distant relatives. Our stops were just like the drop-in by Ellington’s band members.
I’m not sure we would have stayed in a “colored” motel even if there had been one, since we had very little money.
We took one long journey to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, from New York City by train. Both my mom and dad knew the ropes. Daddy had worked briefly on the trains and my mom’s dad had been a Pullman Porter. I still remember my mom telling me of frequent trips she made by train as a little girl from Philadelphia to Washington, DC, where she was treated like a princess. She would go into the dining car, and the porters who knew she was a porter’s child would seat her in the car, and serve her in her own “princess suite.” They’d draw a curtain around her to protect her from prying eyes. She told me she felt very special and didn’t realize until she got older that the curtain was to keep white travelers from being offended by having a black child in “their” dining facility.
On that train trip to Baton Rouge, we took a sleeper car suite (which was expensive). That prevented us from having to mix with or deal with white racist travelers, and the all black train staff kept us supplied with food. My parents didn’t tell us that, they simply said we were “special.” When my brother and I grew restless and bored, two of the porters took us on walks through the train and we visited the chefs in the train kitchen. All the workers were black. Almost all the passengers were white.
As a young teenager I made a number of bus trips on my own. Memories of traveling on the bus with other black folks evoke the smell and taste of fried chicken. Yes, I’m well aware of the use of fried chicken in racist images of black folks. However, traveling with chicken made sense. “Rest stops” didn’t always exist. Interstate travel in the south didn’t have thruway service areas with fast food joints that serve everyone. So you packed portable meals that could be eaten cold and didn’t require a knife and fork to cut up. Inexpensive and tasty, baskets of fried chicken got you where you were going. Many moms and grandmas packed enough to share with other passengers who had no food at all.
The Green Book is no more, but black travelers still have the option of hooking up with specialty black travel agencies. As more and more middle class black folks are vacationing around the world, there is still a need to be prepared for racist encounters.
I admit to grinning when I saw this Portuguese anti-racism PSA a few years ago.
Rather than things getting better for people of color, travel has become more difficult. Ramped up xenophobia, Islamophobia, and deportation of immigrants require being prepared. The Sikh Coalition has a phone app called FlyRights:
Launched in 2012, FlyRights is a free mobile app with which one can quickly and easily document air travel discrimination and report it directly to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), one’s elected representatives in Congress, and/or the Sikh Coalition — right as it occurs, right from the airport. The app also includes a “Know Your Rights Guide.”
Usage of the app has resulted in apologies, remedies, and TSA re-trainings.
Although created by the Sikh community, the app can be used by anyone, and has also been popular with women, Asian Americans, African Americans, and people with disabilities.
Other groups have similar apps to deal with police encounters.
Perhaps we will have a mobile Green Book one day, like the one portrayed in this black comedy video: