Page 52 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2019

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

50 Blues Festival Guide 2019