Page 52 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2019
P. 52

Beyond the





                                                   Green Book







                                                              “At the bus station in Durham, North Carolina.”  Photo by Jack Delano, 1940.
                                                              Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection,
                                                              Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-ppmsc-00199 (http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8a33837)


















                         By Lamont Jack Pearley               wasn’t a tremendous need for The Negro Motorist Green Book for
           Recently, the Academy Award-winning movie, Green Book,   a portion of African American citizens of small southern towns,
        ignited  conversation  and  intrigue  about  the  travels  of  African   since most didn’t travel. However, there were some who traveled
        Americans during the Jim Crow era and the use of this historical   for work. There were also some who traveled to sing and play
        traveling guide. Those familiar with the Green Book were reminded   their instrument. Before the inception of The Negro Motorist Green
        of racial prejudice, price gouging and physical violence, which   Book,  and  even  before  the  infamous  1896  Plessy  v.  Ferguson
        spawned the book’s creation – and others who didn’t know of its   which  solidified  the  constitutionality  of  “separate  but  equal”
        existence, sought to find out.                        racial segregation laws, there were African Americans traveling
           The original and official name of the guide was The Negro   across and around the United States. They were the Black spiritual
        Motorist Green Book – eventually simply called the Green Book   choirs and vaudeville performers, and with them, they carried the
        – published by Victor H. Green, a mailman from Harlem, NY,   tradition of messages in songs. That same tradition was passed
        between the years of 1936 to 1966. Its sole purpose was to give   down and utilized by the bluesmen and women who would soon
        African American travelers a map of safe locations they could   become the staple of American music and Black culture. These
        travel, eat and lodge as they journeyed through the Jim Crow South   traveling musicians didn’t have the Green Book, but they did have
        and other segregated regions of America. This notion to create a   knowledge of how and where to travel and lodge. Even when
        guide for the safety of African Americans gives a harsh look at the   the Green Book began to circulate, rural southern bluesmen and
        conditions during the days of segregation. The film Green Book   women tended to utilize traditional tactics to journey the terrain of
        gives us a light version of the experiences that Dr. Don Shirley, a   locations plagued by African American discrimination.
        world-class African American pianist, endured during his concert   We  hear  the  stories  of  the  hobo  or  traveling  bluesman
        tour of the Deep South in 1962. Though the character played by   sneaking on and camping out in cargo cars of the trains. We love
        Mahershala Ali faced blatant racism as he and his white Bronx   the nostalgia of these poor African American musicians learning
        chauffeur drove the southern roads utilizing The Negro Motorist   new notes by mimicking the sounds of the locomotive’s steam horn
        Green Book for safe lodging and meals, there is one reality that   as they sit in boredom and reflective moments. As quaint a story
        must  be  considered.  Dr.  Don  Shirley,  like  many  other  African   as  it  is,  that’s  not  how  these  professional  musicians  toured  the
        Americans who utilized this book, were middle to upper-middle   country. During the Great Depression, America was introduced to
        class affluent African Americans. They were educated people who   the traveling bluesman. This was during a time in America when
        left the South for a more cosmopolitan way of life.   the country was poor, and the poor were even poorer. Record
           Automobiles  weren’t  readily  accessible  to  most  African   sales plummeted and the cheapest piece of entertainment was
        Americans of the day, especially those of the rural South. There   the radio. At this time, rural blues recordings were extremely cost



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