Overground Railroad

Although she doesn't mention the film her book, the Oscar-winning Green Book certainly was good timing for Candacy Taylor's book, Oveground Railroad, which is an examination of the guide book for African Americans that existed from 1936 to 1967. Like many things about black America, it was popular in its own niche, though unknown to the rest of the country.

Started by Victor Hugo Green, who was a postman full time, the guide listed businesses around America that would accept blacks as customers. This was not an idle thing, as during this period, as car travel grew by leaps and bounds, black people had a hard time knowing if a hotel, gas station, or any other kind of business would accept them. Taylor notes: "To avoid the humiliation of being denied basic services, many black motorists were forced to travel with ice coolers, bedding, portable toilets, and full gas cans."

In addition to being denied basic services, black motorists also had to worry about the police (they do today, it seems). She notes that many black men carried chauffeur caps, so that if a cop stopped them they could say they were driving their employer's car. Many blacks who could afford nicer cars got lesser models, so they wouldn't arouse suspicion. Taylor also details what were known as "sundown" towns, where blacks were expected to be out of town before night fell--to be found there after dark was a recipe for trouble. She sums it up by writing, "From the 1920s to the present, each generation of black Americans had to incorporate strategies to protect themselves from law enforcement."

Taylor works chronologically though the editions of the Green Book, but also by subject. One fascinating chapter is on Route 66, which is romanticized as the "Mother Road" by white people, but was a road strewn with landmines for blacks. "When the Green Book was first published, roughly half of the eighty-nine counties on Route 66 were sundown counties. By the 1950s, about 35 percent of the counties on Route 66 didn’t allow black motorists after six PM. And although the road was open to black travelers, it was unknown where they could find a meal or a place to rest because six of the eight states that lined the Mother Road as far west as Arizona had segregation laws."

Other interesting tidbits are that Esso, today known as Exxon, was extremely helpful toward black customers. Most Esso stations served blacks, and they even hired black executives.

Where Oveground Railroad sometimes lost me was when Taylor turned  it into a polemic. I certainly agree what Taylor has to say, but the end of the book turns into anger about mass incarceration among blacks. While this is a problem, no doubt, it doesn't link to her main subject. In essence, she takes in all of Jim Crow America and beyond, condeming Bill Clinton for the crime bill. He was president long after the Green Book ceased publishing.

And, like Negro baseball or the chitlin circuit, integration spelled the end of the need for the Green Book. Green himself wrote, “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.”

Taylor notes that for some black people, such as her stepfather, integration was the worst thing that could happen to them. "It’s ironic that it was integration, which most Americans wanted (and still want), that killed many of the sites in the Green Book. It’s also ironic that something as hateful as segregation facilitated a stronger sense of unity in the black community." I find this an interesting statement, because even today some black people prefer to stick with other black people. When I was in college, black kids stayed in the same dorms and ate at the same tables, even though they were allowed to live and eat wherever they wanted (I had a black suitemate for a time). I think this speaks to human nature, but shouldn't the ideal be that we all look past skin color and ancestry?