Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. We have
an interview today. We were connected to the folks that
McMillan podcasts about their new show, which is called Driving
(00:24):
the Green Book. It is hosted by Alvin Hall, who
took a road trip from Detroit to New Orleans along
with associate producer Janney woods Webber. They documented this trip
and the places they went and the people they talked
to and the stories they told in a ten part
series that's all about the Negro Motorists Green Book. The
(00:47):
first five episodes are out now and new episodes come
out on Tuesdays. Tracy talked to Alvin and Janet about
their thoughts and experiences with the Negro Motorists screen book
and their road trip and the podcast itself, and we're
sharing that interview with you today. I'm here today with
Alvin Hall and Janet woods Webber, and we're going to
(01:09):
talk about their new podcast, Driving the Green Book. Alvin
is the host and Janet you are the associate producer. Correct. Yeah,
So The Negro Motorist Green Book, which later became known
as the Negro Travelers Green Book, was really the most
well known guide for black travelers before the Civil Rights
Act of nineteen sixty four outlawed racial discrimination and public accommodations.
(01:34):
So Victor Hugo Green, who was a letter carrier, started
this guide in nineteen thirty six, was inspired in part
by similar guides that were meant for Jewish travelers and
just travel guides in general. For this podcast, Alvin and
Janet went on a road trip last year from Detroit
to New Orleans and interviewed people who used the Green
(01:54):
Book in their own lives that they talked about their
own experiences then and now, Alvin and Janette, I, I'm
so happy that you're here with me today, and I'm
also so glad that you've created this podcast. I have
really wanted to talk about the Green Book on our
show for years, and I had a hard time figuring
out a great approach to it. And the approach that
you have chosen is really fantastic because you're not only
(02:16):
talking to real people about their real experiences, you've also
just taken a broader look at the Green Book more
as a time capsule. So beyond giving people a resource
for safe places to do things like deal with car
trouble or get a bite to eat. Also, you know,
having a document of what the world was like over
these decades. And I also wanted to talk to both
(02:38):
of you together today because you went on this trip together,
which I also love. So welcome to both of you.
Thank you, Thank you. First, starting with Alvin, could each
of you tell us just a little about your background
and what drew you to this project. In two thousand
and fifteen, I was approached by a guy at the
(03:01):
BBC who had read an article about the Green Book
and thought there should be a program about it. I
had also read an article about the Green Book and
had been thinking about it at the same time, and
as a result we created an earlier version of this
but completely different for the BBC called The Green Book.
(03:23):
I had been working on and off from the BBC
since about when I started there, creating personal finance programs.
So in the UK I had done investing for all
with Alvin Hall and my Landmark series Your Money or
Your Life, which was a reality show about money. When
(03:45):
that ended, I started to do more cultural programming around
things like who sold the soul, intellectual property, and African
American music. Jay Z from Brooklyn to the Boardroom, and
that eventually led to the Green Book. That's great. How
about you today? What what brought you to this project?
As a biracial Black woman who was raised in New
(04:06):
England by a white mother, I have always been on
a quest to discover my Black, my African American heritage.
And this is in part fueled not only by my
desire to know about my ancestors and to understand my
place in our country and in our history, but also
by the decade of work that I have done fighting
(04:28):
for the liberation of black people and other people of color.
I've been active in the Moral Monday movements, in the
Black Lives Matter movement. I'm an activist. I also work
for a family foundation where we focus on equity and education,
which means taking a very explicit look at the ways
racism and poverty impact the educational outcomes and opportunities for children,
(04:49):
in particular Black children and other children of color. So
the Green Books started out focused just in the New
York City area, particularly around Harlem, primarily for services that
a motorist would need on the road. So like auto mechanics,
a place to get a bite to eat. Can you
tell us about how it expanded from there? Yes, Victor
(05:11):
gradually realized that people were traveling further and further across America.
So first he expanded it all the way down to
Florida and up to the Mississippi River, because that was
easy for him to access. He gathered the information from
fellow postman who are were in the same union. At
the time he was a postman. There were black postman
(05:34):
union and a white postman union, and so the black
postman would know the places that had the best food,
that had clean accommodations, where you can get all of
the services you need when you travel. So Victor collected
all of that first going up to the Mississippi, and
then quickly after that he expanded it across the US.
(05:54):
He would advertise in the Green Book that if you
wanted to place listed there, give them a call, and
he also hired agents at some point who would also
go out and visit the places, confirmed them and recommend
that they advertised in the Green Book. So it gradually
became a picture of America and a changing America. At
that time, I knew that he was a letter carrier,
(06:16):
and I didn't realize that he had relied on the
other members of his union to to build out the
Green Book. There's so much fascinating information in the episodes
of your show that are out so far. Um as
of when we're recording, there are four out unless one
came out today. They come out every Tuesday, so there
(06:37):
are four out now, and they have talked about things
like entrepreneurship is just referenced, um, how the Green Book
connects to some really thriving black neighborhoods. One that you
talked about and visited was the note as Little Harlem
in Jackson, Mississippi. As you were making all of these connections,
(06:57):
was there anything that you discovered that really surprised you? Absolutely, I,
for one, was incredibly surprised in a gratifying sort of way,
to learn about the entrepreneurship of black women. I have
commented on this numerous times to Alvin while we were
in the process of going on this road trip, while
we were perusing copies of the Green Book, and since
(07:20):
then as we've been sharing these stories about our time
on the road. Because for me, growing up, what I
was taught the history that I was taught was that
black women our history in this country started as enslaved people,
or we were domestics. I did not know that black
women were the economic backbone of many black communities. They
(07:43):
ran boarding houses, they ran hotels, they ran restaurants, and oftentimes,
because of racism, white men, white businessmen and communities would
not want to do business with black men, so they
would instead speak with the black women, which I found
to be a very interesting situation, considering, you know what
we know now about feminism and business and how then
(08:06):
in general don't deal with women. But to understand that
there was a time when black women were really at
the forefront of economic activity, especially in the South, was
an eye opener for me, how about you, Alvin. For me,
it was the resilience that we saw again and again.
People would tell us the most horrific stories. Hezekiah story
(08:31):
in episode one about he and his brother sitting in
the car watching their father be demeaned by shares when
they go to the house to collect his aunt Beat's paycheck.
To think about the collateral damage of that situation, him,
his brother, the mother sitting in the car, but also
to think about how he when he tells that story.
(08:54):
He doesn't tell it as a negative totally, but he
tells it as something they survive, they learned from. He
then used that knowledge later on when he was stopped again,
and he passed that on to the next generation so
that they could survive. We heard the story of survival
and optimism in the face of really dangerous situations again
(09:17):
and again. And what fascinated mean, what I took away
from it is that we as African Americans have some
place in us this well of optimism, resilience, and the
belief that we can make our futures better. That's really lovely.
There was a moment, and I don't I don't remember
the specifics, but there was a moment in one of
the episodes that I was listening to, were one of
(09:38):
the people we were talking to was telling a story,
and it was like everyone in the room laughed so
joyfully about I felt almost like I was intruding on
someone else's private gathering. Um, and it really speaks to
what you were just talking about. In this next segment
of the interview, Tracy talks with Alvin and Janet about
(09:59):
how their own experience dances on the road mirrored the
experiences of some of the people they interviewed. But before
we get into that, we're gonna pause and have a
sponsor break. Victor Green talked about how he really hoped
that one day the Green Book would not be necessary anymore,
(10:21):
and unfortunately he did not live to see that day
because he died in nineteen sixty. His wife, Alma, had
been working on the Green Book with him. She took
over managing it. She later passed it on to others,
and it the last edition came out in nineteen sixty six,
So that was after the Civil Rights Act was in effect.
But I mean, it's clear today that travel still is
(10:44):
not nearly as safe for black travelers as it is
for white travelers. Was that something that influenced the trip
as you were planning to go on it for this show? Absolutely?
And some more over ways. For example, Alvin and I
made plans to drive explicitly only during daylight. We were
(11:07):
not interested in tempting any sort of negative fate by
driving on foreign Southern roads that we weren't familiar with
at night. And also something that we had never talked
about but that we did quite naturally was I drove
almost the whole way more than two thousand miles because
we both know a black man at the wheel of
(11:29):
a nice car can attract the attention of unwanted scrutiny,
and we simply didn't want to deal with that, and
we never had a conversation about it, but we have
an implicit understanding that that's how we would operate on
the road. Yes, And I think that's something that was
really powerful looking back on the trip that Janee and I,
(11:50):
who have been friends a long time, we knew there
were things that we just understood between the two of us.
It was like we had this radar. We didn't need
to say it because we both understood what was happening.
Even sometimes during the interviews, people would start to say
things and we would both look at each other and
(12:11):
we knew just to stop and let them continue talking
because what they were about to share with us was
coming from a place of trust, a place of just
believe that we understood it in our road trip, and
often these were stories about things that happened on the road,
and they would end and there would be this moment
(12:32):
of silence because the three of us in the room understood.
I should have asked earlier how the two of you
met and started working together. We're not until a long time,
Genetta tell the story, it's been a hot minute that
because Alvin is a writer, a very gifted writer, and
(12:56):
was working on a book with my father in law.
And I met Alvin one day when he came to
my father in law's office to do some work. We
started talking. We hit it off and we have been
laughing and sharing stories ever since. And that was probably
about twenty years ago. And meals, let's not forget a
(13:20):
love of food. That's true. We have a shared love
of good food, good music, good conversation. That sounds like
like a two thousand mile trip. That's a long trip
to take together. Um And as someone who also travels
for my job, sometimes having somebody that I know well,
(13:40):
that I trust, that I have a positive companionship with
makes it so much more of a joy. Even though
travel can be challenging. Being in the car was a joy,
but it was also a time for both of us
to reflect on interviews we had just had, thoughts. We
were having personal reflections. I often think that the conversations
(14:06):
we had in the car would make their own podcasts
because they're really about the two of us as friends.
The two of us dealing with our background, thinking about
what we had learned, and thinking about the passage of time,
connecting the stories we had just heard to contemporary events.
So it was really good. I appreciate, Albun what you
(14:28):
said about the passage of time, because I think that
notion of time is part of the magic of what
makes this podcast so special, not just because in this
time we're looking back and reflecting on what it was
like for African Americans to use the Green Book thirty
ft years ago, understanding that so much has changed in
that period of time, but that we're also facing so
(14:49):
many of the challenges, but also thinking about the different
orientations that Alvin and I have to that passage of
time because we are of different generations. We've been ends
for a couple of decades now, but Alvin and I
are not part of the same generation, and I had
a much different experience growing up. I was born in
(15:10):
the post Civil rights era world, whereas Alvin grew up
during the Civil rights era, and the ways that we
related to the stories that were being told we're quite different.
For Alvin, I do think for you it was like
a true homecoming when you heard some of these stories,
whereas for me it was a revelation. It was an
(15:31):
opportunity for me to be introduced to the elders and
their wisdom that I never knew because I did not
have the privilege of growing up with African American elders
in my family, and so we just had a very
different response to what we heard. And I think that
that really shines through in the way that these stories
(15:51):
ultimately were told. For me, the stories were often deeply penetrating,
and I had no barriers to them. I just couldn't.
They were like going back into my own past. They
were like feeling relatives in the room who had died
decades ago. It was like living in the moment when
you got the right to vote and all of a sudden,
(16:13):
everybody was cheering. All of that was ever present for me.
Emotions were very present in this podcast. There was a
lot of laughter, but there were also moments when we
would look at each other across the table and there
would be tears in folks eyes and we would simply
(16:33):
look at one another and share that understanding, that knowledge
that even though we are of different generations, were from
different parts of the country, we still have a shared
experience around our history around segregation and racism in this country.
Was this something that the two have you talked to
each other about during that car time or was it
(16:55):
more introspective A bit of both. Um, Sometimes you didn't
need to say anything and other times you just needed
to get it out. We interviewed a lady tea Marie
King in Birmingham I think it was in Birmingham, I
think it was, and she talked about being at the
(17:15):
what's commonly called the Lynching Memorial in Montgomery and seeing
one of the jars of Earth there with the name
of one of her relatives on it. Yeah, and she
talked about the moment she saw that because she was
giving a tour with other people, looked up and there
was the name, and she knew the name immediately. When
(17:36):
she told about that, you know that was that was
one of those moments where you hearing it you felt wow.
But yes, she told us in a very cool, a
very balanced way that showed how she had taken this
in and she had, as the episode is called, found
a place for it. I think often in talking about
(17:57):
these things that we heard, it helped both of us
to find places for it inside of us because we
knew it would never go away. We knew it would
be with us for a lifetime, but we had to
find a place for it. So before you started this trip,
what did you imagine that it was going to be
like to do this, that you have an idea in
(18:19):
your mind of what this was all going how is
going to play out? Oh, that's a wonderful question. And
I'll start by saying I immediately had hoped we would
eat lots of amazing, delicious soul food, which we did. Indeed,
I have never eaten so much incredible for high chicken
in my life. But that was, you know, just the culinary,
(18:42):
physical aspect of it. I didn't know what to expect.
I went into this with a sense of wonder, a
sense of searching, and I was looking for not just
these parts of history that were never taught to me,
but in a way, I think I was also looking
for parts of myself that had never been revealed to me,
(19:03):
Things about where I came from that I've never known about.
Because people are products of the places where they are
and the families where they grow up, and I grew
up distanced from my African American family, my African American
family also has roots in the Deep South in Alabama,
and I have never spent any significant amount of time there,
(19:24):
but I know that their d n A. I know
that that Alabama soil runs through my blood. So I
was just excited to go and to be there, to
breathe the air, to walk on the streets where perhaps
my ancestors, my relatives walked, to see the places that
they saw, and also to bear witness to what they survived.
(19:49):
I'm still here. I am here because they were strong,
they survived, they lived. Their resilience and their grit is
evidenced by the fact that I'm here generations later. I've
done several other road trips UH related to BBC programs,
So for me, part of it is making sure we
(20:10):
stay on schedule, making sure we get the interviews down
on time, making sure we're on the road on time. Um,
I'm very much about that because you only have so
many days for the entire production. It's like a movie.
You have to do it in twelve days or you don't.
There's no other time or resources left. So that was
always in the back of my mind to keep us going.
(20:33):
But I was also very much aware of the potential
for danger on the road, for example, if we get stopped,
which is why Jeanne drove substantially more than I did.
I was also concerned about weather conditions. I was also
concerned about finding the places where we were going, because
we had no idea where they would located, what types
(20:54):
of neighborhoods they were in, whether it would be safe
to leave the car. So I was. I was always
a little bit concerned. And to me, the surprising thing
was when I realized that my concerns often parallel the
concerns of the people using the Green Book. Now, where
(21:14):
am I going to stay, Where we're gonna find food?
You know what happens if something goes wrong? Do we
have a number of the call? These were all the
same concerns. And here I am in two thousand nineteen
on the road, which nay, and we're having the same concerns. Yeah.
When you were talking earlier about leaving very very early
to avoid the possibility of being on the road at night,
(21:36):
I was like, I heard so many people telling that
exact story in one of the earlier episodes of the podcast. Yes,
and people also drove all night long sometimes and they
would leave in the middle of the night. Why because
they wanted to avoid the white gaze on the road,
Because many people don't know that any white person, especially
(21:59):
in the South, could stop any black person on the road,
and so in order to avoid the chances of that happening,
many people drove all night. And also by driving during
the day, you avoided the risk of being caught in
a sun downtown after the sun went down. Sun downtowns
did not permit African American people to be within their
(22:21):
borders once the sun went down, or there could be trouble. Janey,
when you talked earlier about sort of your your sense
going into it, uh, when when I had asked if
if there was as an image in your mind of
of what this trip was going to be like, Um,
how did the trip compare too to how you thought
(22:41):
going into it when you were at the other end
of it at the end, had it gone the way
that you thought that it was going to. I feel
like Alvin had a good sense being having gone on
several road trips of how that was going to at
least most of I was going to get. Well, I'm
gonna ass thinking I'm going to say something. The trip
did not turn out the way I thought it would. Initially,
(23:03):
when we thought it through, we were looking for people
who had visited certain hotels, certain places in that town,
who had eaten a certain restaurants, who could recall what
it was like to walk down the black streets and
areas of that town. However, I'm going to be very
honest and direct about this. I think for a lot
(23:25):
of the people we interviewed, it may have been the
first time that they were being interviewed by a black couple.
And I think that because of the combinations of our
personalities our sense of grace, that we made them more
comfortable and the stories went beyond just about buildings and
(23:48):
places and time, and they started to share personal stories
with us. So at the end of the trip, I
realized that we had something richer and I could have
ever imagined. The people had trusted us, they had given
us their personal story, so we could tell the story
(24:08):
of the Green Book in their voices, not ours. I'll
agree with that. I went into this trip thinking we
would follow the schedule that we had set. We had
this Alvin had a big atlas of trust of the GPS.
(24:29):
He had an actual gigantic map that he would pull
out and open. So I thought that, you know, we
would follow the map, we would stick to the schedule,
we would do all of the interviews as they were
lined up, and as we delved deeper into these technical
aspects of creating this podcast. What Alvin said is true.
The humanity of what we were documenting was revealed to
(24:52):
us in this absolutely glorious and respondent and touching way.
And I'm really pleased and proud was the way these
final stories were captured and shared out with the audience,
because I feel like what the audience experiences hearing these
stories really mirrors what I felt when I was on
(25:15):
this road trip searching for this history. When I started
this road trip, I was going off in search of
history that I had never learned, history that it was
not in my school books. But I found something that
was so much deeper. It was really about the humanity
of the people who lived in this time, and to me,
(25:36):
it was a wonderful surprise. I think for both of us,
one of the days, I think we will laugh about
it and smile at each other about It's the interview
that we started with Anna Nettles and Crystal Churchwell at
the First Institute in Nashville. It was such wonderful. They
were vibrant, beautiful black women and it was so enthusist
(26:00):
as second, so present. And then we interview went to
interview on the Nettles on Dr Evelyn Nettles at Tennessee
State University, and that evening when we were looking for
a place to go to data and said oh, no, no, no, no,
you're coming to my house. You're coming to and and
they all came over. It was so heartwarming and it
(26:22):
could have been just like a scene out of a
movie about the Real Green Book. We're driving other roads,
pouring right and pouring right. We have no idea where
we're going, so we're looking for the Nettles house, you know,
the safe harbor, so to speak. And we pull up
and we're driving slowly looking for the numbers, and then
we see the number. We turn in and the lights
up there. They come out with towels and umbrellas. It
(26:44):
was so touching it was they ushered us into their home.
There were warm drinks, hugs. They acted like we were
a long lost family finally coming to visit after many months,
when they had just met us earlier that day. It
was really like being embraced, and it was such an
incredible experience to understand even just a tiny amount the
(27:09):
relief that black travelers must have had back then after
being anxious on the road, especially if they were traveling
with young children, to show up to a family home
and to be greeted with such kindness, it's it's extraordinary.
And this is one of those wonderful days that after
the interview, we were driving the next day and Jananna
(27:32):
turned and looked at each other and said, the Nettles
of Nashville and that that is episode five and the
concept behind that has not changed since that moment in
that car. I'm looking forward to that one. At that
that one should be out, I think by the time
this episode of the show comes out. Um, I do
(27:52):
want to circle back to the idea. I appreciate this
podcast so much, and I appreciate your work on it
so much because I feel like as a like, as
a white listener, I'm getting a perspective that I would
not have gotten if someone else had gone to do
these interviews, and like if if a white podcast host
(28:13):
had asked the same people similar questions, that their responses
might not have been as candid. So I'm extraordinarily grateful
that like this is existing now to share these people's
experiences and views for all audiences in a way that
I think, if you know, if I had tried to
(28:33):
do it, I might not have captured. I think part
of that is again due to Janet's personality and grace,
and I always say my southernness. Several times during the interviews,
people would go where are you from? And I would go,
from really from Tallassi, Florida. They go, I knew you
were from the South, or you sound like a relative
(28:55):
of mine, right, Because I am Southern, I live in
New York City. I made a deeply Southern person in
so many ways, and I think that connection was the
thing that made them more trusting. They knew we weren't
out to betray them or tricked them. We just wanted
to have a conversation. And the other part of it
was because Jane and I are both intelligent people, and
(29:19):
we talked through everything. We did all of these interviews
without notes. We weren't sitting there with notes on our
laps following questions. We were listening to these people, and
all of our questions and responses came honestly and intuitively
out of what they were saying, organically out of what
they were saying. Yeah, that's that's right. We didn't take
(29:41):
notes because we weren't there to collect these stories as
if they were merely artifacts. These stories were gifts, and
it was generous of people to share these gifts with us,
especially because for many folks, this was not something that
they had really talked about all both before, and the
(30:01):
fact that they were speaking about it with me and
Alvin was profound because we are black people, and black
history is American history. Black stories are American stories, but
we wanted to tell these black stories from the black perspective.
We wanted to center blackness, African American nous in everything,
(30:24):
in every element of this podcast. And I think you
can feel that when you listen. It feels authentic, it
feels true, and we're really honoring the spirit and the
energy of the people who took the time to share
these memories with us. And I'd like to add one
thing to that. I think that all of that was
(30:47):
enhanced by the work of du Lake Atlantiqua Williams, who
was the editor. She got the stories emotionally and intellectually
from the very first day we worked together, and the
first day we edited one complete program, she got it,
(31:08):
and then she introduced us to Cedric Wilson, who did
the soundscaping and did her original score. And I gave
him some of the music that we had taken on
the road trip and shared with him some music that
I love from that period. And I think the soundscaping
adds to the emotional depth, makes the time passed quickly,
(31:30):
and it disappears right at the time you need it to,
and it comes in when you need it to. Next
up in the interview, Tracy is going to talk with
Alvin and Jinet about the timing of Driving the Green
Books release, both in terms of the ongoing COVID nineteen
pandemic and the pandemic of system of racism. But before
we get into that, let's take a quick break. When
(31:58):
do you all were on this trip and a problem
I imagine when you started working on editing the episodes,
depending on what your timeline was like, it seems unlikely
that anyone imagined that this podcast was going to be
coming out to the public in the middle of a
pandemic when travel is not being encouraged for anyone. Do
you think that is going to affect how people here
(32:22):
and interact with these episodes. We really had no control
over the release date of this podcast series, uh, and
I was anxious to get it out, But I think
in many ways, fates were looking favorably upon us. I
think that somewhere out there, something or some power believed
(32:43):
that people needed to hear this story, and it got
released at this time when people may have been looking
for something like this. I know that many people were
at home and had seen the Green Book movie, so
this provided a nice balance for what they were feeling
for the movie, and maybe it made them more curious
(33:04):
about and open to hearing the real story as opposed
to the Hollywood version. The Hollywood version is a very
different thing. It is a very different story because it's
told from the white point of view. It's told from
the point of view of the driver, not the point
of view of the African American pianist. Ours, as Jenny said,
(33:26):
is told from the point of view of a black person.
Of the black people we interviewed and ourselves we are
comment about the pandemic. It really makes me think because
you were referencing the COVID nineteen pandemic and as all
then said, people being at home and having more time,
hopefully that makes them more curious to learn the real history.
(33:47):
But we are also deep in a moment around another pandemic,
the racism pandemic, which is evidenced by police brutality against
people of color, by the warranted stops on the road
that escalate into violence against people of color, and there's
a growing public consciousness around that. So we're living through
(34:10):
these twin pandemics of racism and violence against black people.
Also while we're quarantined at home because of the COVID
nineteen pandemic, And in an odd way, I think that
does create a situation where stories like this one really
speak to the moment that we were in and hopefully
(34:30):
can help people think about how can we be better
in the future. I think what Jenny said is absolutely
spot on. I think I worked on getting the series
commissioned and realize for over two years, and I believe
that and when we finally got it commissioned, I was
(34:53):
thrilled when Jenny said yes, I was thrilled. When we
started the road trip, I was thrilled, But then we
had to do production in the production took a little
bit longer and then when Julaica finally came into the picture,
it started to move fast. But even after that, there
were little delays and little delays, and I became concerned. Clearly,
somewhere out there, some force was the laying this for
(35:17):
this moment. The ancestors, the ancestors exactly. You. You went
to so many places, you talked to so many people
for this podcast. Was there anything like a story that
anyone's told you or or something that happened along the
way that you really wanted to fit into an episode
and there just wasn't a good place for it. Oh yes,
(35:42):
when we were editing, there was a brilliant story when
um Dr Evelyn Nettles was visiting her grandmother sc Nettles
down in a Moss Point in Mississippi when she was
a little girl. Her grandmother gave us money and she
went into the store to buy some ice cream, and
(36:04):
of course, being a little girl, she didn't know that
it was a segregated store. So she was up at
the counter with her money, about to buy her ice cream,
and her grandmother was in the car saw her and
rushed in and grabbed her to get her out of there.
And she didn't really understand why until much later. There
were many stories like that about how a parent would
(36:30):
try to protect their child, and often you heard them
say later on, I really didn't know what was going
on because my parents so protected me. We wanted to
do a whole episode about that, but that was difficult
to pull off, and so we left that story go.
And I think the other one was which we kept
in until the last moment, was Crystal church Well when
(36:54):
we were sitting there in the first museum and across
from the Amtrak station, and and she looked out of
the window and said, my father was a porter in
that station, and they treated him so badly in that
job that he didn't even last longer there. And he
or she is sitting in the museum overlooking that station
(37:15):
where her father was treated so badly. It was just
one of those rich moments you want to keep in
because it as texture, but you can't. And there were
many moments in the car or when Alvin and I
would tour places and we would share our reflections on
the stories we heard or these historical sites that we
(37:38):
were visiting, and those don't appear in the podcast. And
I do think there is a power in those reflections because,
as we mentioned earlier, Alvin and I grew up at
different times in this country and we have had different
experiences being black people in this country. He's a man,
I'm a woman for a different generations. He grew up
(38:00):
in the South. I grew up in the Northeast, and
we still have the shared experience, And so many of
the stories and reflections we were sharing were grounded in
some universal fundamental truths that I have discovered hold solid
I think for most black folks, and I would love
to be able to share some of the hot someday.
(38:22):
Are there any of the universal truths that you'd like
to talk about? Now? That we are and optimistic people,
we could not have lived through Jim Crow segregation, We
could not have survived all of the red lining that occurred,
the denial of our rights when we had gone to
war to fight communism and fascism and then come back
(38:46):
to this country and be treated the way we were.
We have to be an optimistic people. Um. We are
a forgiving people because you hear the stories and most
of them are really horrific, but people forgive and move on.
We don't forget, but we forgive and move on because
(39:07):
we know that we have to make a better life
for ourselves. And I think that while we are aware
of the past, we try not to let people trap
us in the past. Many people will refer to black
people as if you know, there's been no progress since
no reconstruction, or since Jim pro or since the Great Migration.
(39:32):
We are a diverse people in America, and we've done
a lot to help sustain America. I tell everybody we
are the people with the passing of the Voting Rights
Act of nineteen who helped America realize the word democracy.
It's that simple. So there are those crews that we
all participate in that I think about quite frequently, especially
(39:56):
in the times in which we live. So Driving the
Green Book is ten total episodes. I have heard four
of them. There will be a fifth one out by
the time this episode comes out. Do you each have
favorites among those episodes or are they all? Are they
all at a an equal place in your hearts? Can
(40:17):
any mother choose a favorite of a mother? Well, there's
word I can't listen to. I cannot listen to episode six.
It is it's so Hank Sandford story of about his mother.
It's so powerful, so powerful, and it's a simple story.
(40:40):
And at the very end of it, Janet asked a
very simple question, what is your mother's name? It's a
beautiful sequence, and for me, that story is the one
that lives at me every day, every day. I don't
think I've let that story go since the time we recorded.
I will never forget that moment. That is one of
(41:04):
my most favorite moments of being on the road. I
remember when he said her name, the hairs on my
arm stood up, and it was almost as if you
could feel her presence because we said her name, We
called her back to us. And another favorite moment was
when he recalled the march from Selma to Montgomery and
(41:29):
he talked about Dr King and how he would say
how long, and the crowd would say not long, and
then he repeated again, how long, not long? And then
I asked the question if Dr King was standing in
front of you today, and he said, how long? How
would you answer that question today? One of those moments
(41:52):
you never forget. Thank you both so much for talking
to me today. Is there anything that you would really
want our listeners to know about driving the Green Book
or your experience working on it? Oh? I think for
Jane and me, one of the rich aspects of this
(42:13):
series is the different accents that you will hear throughout.
You have Hazekiah opening it, you have the beautiful voice
of Evelyn Nettles, you have Danny Ransom talking about his
(42:33):
love of maps, and to me, just to hear all
of those accents from all over the South, it's just
so beautiful. It's and I think people need to listen
out for that, because I think that's what really makes
this better than just going out and doing a simple documentary.
(42:56):
And there will be long passages in which you will
hear nothing from Janee, are from me, and all you
have will be the voices of the people we interviewed.
My hope is that Driving the Green Book inspires younger
Black people to seek out the stories of their elders.
(43:17):
These are not the stories that are commonly told, but
these are the stories that are so important for us
to understand collectively who we are and the strength that
we have and all of the beauty and intelligence and
grace and wisdom that we have to offer the world.
There were so many more of these stories. There are
(43:39):
ten episodes in this podcast. We could have made a hundred.
There are so many more stories, and not just about
the Green Book. Black people, African Americans, we are extraordinary
and spectacular. There's so much more to be shared. Thank
you both again, so so much. Thank you for our
(44:00):
listeners who want to learn more about the Negro Motors
screen book. First, of course, there's the excellent podcast that
we have been talking about for the last uh half hour.
So Also, the New York Public Library has digitized more
than twenty years of green books. Um they put them
online in t and so if you would like to
go browse through them see what it looked like. Those
(44:22):
are there. And then Driving the Green Book is from
McMillan Podcasts and it's available on Apple podcast and Stitcher
and the I Heart Radio app basically anywhere that you
would like to get your podcasts. Thank you, thank you,
thank you so much to Alvin and Janet for taking
the time to talk with me. It was truly a pleasure.
I really appreciate their work on Driving the Green Book.
(44:45):
Like I said when I talked to them, I had
listened to the four episodes that we're already out, and
they're they're really lovely and thoughtful and insightful. I really
hope our listeners will check it out. Also, as I
said in the interview, it's the subject we've really need
to cover on our show for a long time, and
their approach to it is just really moving and and interesting.
(45:07):
There's a lot going on, Tracy. I am so thankful
that you made time to do this interview. It came
up at a time when my schedule was not very
forgiving and willing to make a space, so I really
really appreciate it. Since this did run a little bit long,
and it is a lot of really marvelous information to digest,
We're not doing listener mail this time, but Tracy, do
you want to tell people where they can find us? Yes,
(45:29):
if you would like to email us, you can at
History Podcast at i heart radio dot com. And then
we're all over social media at missed in History. That's
where you'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. And
you can subscribe to our show on Apple, podcast, the
I heart Radio app, and anywhere else you get your podcasts.
(45:50):
Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of
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