Driving cross-country as intentionally black as possible

June 14, 2017 12:34 PM

#TheRootTrip: From June 12-18, follow author Lawrence Ross on the blackest road trip ever: driving 3,000 miles from Los Angeles to "the tobacco farm where Booker T. Washington was enslaved in Roanoke, Va.," while patronizing as many black-owned businesses as possible along the way. "We’re also going black in time, and that means pulling out The Negro Motorist Green Book," 1957 edition.
posted by nicebookrack (31 comments total)

Here's my current benchmark for driving "as intentionally black as possible""

I'll say this about George Clinton: I've never heard him speak a bad word about anybody... black, white, green, yellow. It never mattered. He's not at all intimidated by anybody and is really kind. He wins people over without a confrontation. You're traveling with these guys, as I discovered... me, a milk and cookies man from Toronto, coming from my first tour, taking off with three different station wagons out of Detroit, being one of the drivers - I was well-practiced at that from my days in Bush... this was on my second time with the Parliament. But taking off and thinking, "Oh, somebody's smoking a joint in the car. This is ridiculous," only to find out they all had their own bag of weed and they were all enveloped in this smoke with the window down all the way, on the way to some university gig.

We went down to some black university in Tuskegee, I believe. I remember driving through the night and everything, and we needed gas in some rural area of the south. I'm thinking to myself, "These guys are going to stop for gas at some outpost..." - these black men who are like totally avant-garde for the time. They looked like Sly Stone and those guys. They stopped at a place, and I thought, "OK, this is it. I'm gonna die, right here. We're gonna get shot. We're gonna be dead." We pulled in, it's just dawn, and immediately, all the lights at the pump shut off, like a movie. All we needed were a couple hound dogs sitting on the porch or something. I thought, "Oh no, we're stuck. This is it." These guys come stumbling out of the three station wagons. What a sight for a bunch of white rednecks to see these guys stumbling out... guys in these weird looking coats, George Clinton with his triangular hat on, fur around it, these platform boots - and he takes his hat off and it’s shaved other than a star on one side and a moon on the other - and all these other characters in the band. But George Clinton walks right up to those guys who have the doors locked, and the gun rack behind them, and talks for a little while. I'm just... I'm not getting out of the car, I'm from Toronto. The next thing you know, after about 15 minutes, just by being so nice, the pumps come on. The lights come on. We get gasoline, we drive off down the road. That taught me a big lesson how one should treat the situation as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have. Only this was George Clinton in this weird outfit, smiling, and never having a harsh word, even though people were saying nasty things to him. That's a life lesson: how to be kind to people. This guy's not a saint... but he had his own marching tempo and had his own ideas, which have stood the test of time. Even though people treated him poorly from time to time, he could smile and genuinely do it. That's how we left that gas station, tanks full and nobody shooting us.
posted by thelonius at 1:01 PM on June 14, 2017 [36 favorites]

Sort of related: Jordan Peele to Produce HBO Series ‘Lovecraft Country’ With J.J. Abrams, Misha Green
posted by Artw at 1:01 PM on June 14, 2017 [10 favorites]

The Green Book, previously: A survival guide for travellers in a hostile land
posted by filthy light thief at 1:05 PM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

What a great excuse for a roadtrip! I think driving around America is just fantastic, but the idea of doing a Black Roadtrip like this is terrific. I wonder if there's an LGBT roadtrip equivalent? Certainly not so much in rural areas.

I was trying to figure out why he stopped in Lordsburg, NM of all places. But It's right there on the way on I-10, and had a big listing in the 1957 Green Book. The Hightowers Motel is gone now but in a comment someone theorized another motel on E. Motel Drive might be in the same spot.

Oh and a Lovecraft Country TV show sounds great. I read the book and thought it was pretty good but not great. But an excellent starting point for TV.
posted by Nelson at 1:12 PM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

George Clinton is not just black but a black space alien so, like, extra points?

Sounds like a fun trip, nice wheels.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 1:13 PM on June 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

This is EXACTLY the type of thing I would do if I were independently wealthy.
posted by Melismata at 1:18 PM on June 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

The National Museum of African American History & Culture has an interactive about roadtripping while black before the civil rights act. It had to be explained to me why an empty coffee can was needed.
posted by brujita at 1:23 PM on June 14, 2017 [7 favorites]

Sort of related: Jordan Peele to Produce HBO Series ‘Lovecraft Country’ With J.J. Abrams, Misha Green

*breathing heavily*
posted by lumpenprole at 1:27 PM on June 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

@Melismata - I've done a few cross-country road-trips, and while they haven't been focused on a particular theme or goal, they don't require the amount of money that comes to mind when I hear the phrase "independently wealthy." I'd allocate maybe three to four thousand dollars for something like a four-week-long trip (of course this assumes you can take four weeks off work and already own a car reliable enough to drive 3,000 miles and back)
posted by seiryuu at 1:33 PM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I rode my motorcycle across country a few times in my 20s. The only thing it really requires is the kind of life you can come back to. If you're in school, or leaving a job, or your job is writing about that kind of thing, it's really not that pricey.
posted by lumpenprole at 1:43 PM on June 14, 2017

I was trying to figure out why he stopped in Lordsburg, NM of all places. But It's right there on the way on I-10, and had a big listing in the 1957 Green Book. The Hightowers Motel is gone now but in a comment someone theorized another motel on E. Motel Drive might be in the same spot.

Thanks for this comment and additional links! I was looking at New Mexico, as a selfish interest in my home state, and wondering why The Root Trip skipped from Phoenix, AZ to El Paso, TX, when Lordsburg and Las Cruces were both mentioned in the opening post.

From the '57 Green Book, I went looking for the Amigo Motel & Cafe in Tucumcari, NM, I see that Gaynell Ave became Tucumcari Blvd, and then if you look for any building at 1823 East Tucumcari Blvd, you'll be sad to find vacant lots (Google streetview). Trying to find specific old buildings is far more difficult than I realized, even in towns that feel frozen in time, from when the Interstate system was developed, moving traffic off of the historic highways that doubled as main streets, as Route 66 did for Tucumcari.

A final tangent on the Green Book -- in The Open Road Wasn’t Quite Open to All, written by Celia McGee for the New York Times, I see that "In addition to hotels, the guide often pointed them to “tourist homes,” privates residences made available by their African-American owners."
posted by filthy light thief at 1:48 PM on June 14, 2017 [6 favorites]

It's mildly terrifying to see period advertisements for motels with "Fire Detection Services in all Rooms" along with the usual TV and air conditioning. I mean, I know those weren't standard back then and that was legitimately a thing to advertise! But wow.

I love fire codes, especially for motels and hotels.
posted by asperity at 2:02 PM on June 14, 2017

There's a wonderful episode of 99 percent invisible on the green book.
posted by cmfletcher at 2:22 PM on June 14, 2017

I wonder if there's an LGBT roadtrip equivalent? Certainly not so much in rural areas.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert?
posted by Splunge at 2:49 PM on June 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

Or To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar...
posted by straw at 3:51 PM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Sort of related: Jordan Peele to Produce HBO Series ‘Lovecraft Country’ With J.J. Abrams, Misha Green

*breathing heavily*

*hiding neck gills*
posted by leotrotsky at 5:14 PM on June 14, 2017 [6 favorites]

‘Lovecraft Country’

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY ELDRITCH MONEY
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 5:24 PM on June 14, 2017 [8 favorites]

Or To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar...

That was the other one I was thinking of! Thanks. Time to watch again.
posted by Splunge at 5:34 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

Damron has been around since 1964.
posted by brujita at 5:39 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

It seems Gayellow Pages still exists. I remember ordering my first copy in about 1979 or 80. I had it mailed to my school address.
posted by zorseshoes at 6:05 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

The Green Book has come up a lot on MeFi. Here are some more previouslies:
The Green Book, 2010
Vintage Travel Guides for African Americans Now Online, 2015
Displacement for the Many and Homesteading for the Few, 2016
posted by Miko at 8:31 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

Leaving on a cross-country drive in the morning. Wish I had a cool theme like this...
posted by Windopaene at 10:59 PM on June 14, 2017

Yeah, I rode my motorcycle across country a few times in my 20s. The only thing it really requires is the kind of life you can come back to. If you're in school, or leaving a job, or your job is writing about that kind of thing, it's really not that pricey.

Living, as I do, in socialist hellhole Norway you can count on being able to do that trip every single summer holiday... I've been just puttering around Europe for weeks several summers.

To respect the theme of the FPP you might do that kind of trip while presenting as Roma, though. That's unfortunately probably a whole different trip.
posted by Harald74 at 11:39 PM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

To respect the theme of the FPP you might do that kind of trip while presenting as Roma, though. That's unfortunately probably a whole different trip.

Yes, when I was young, I traveled a lot with one of my best friends who is Italian, from Sardinia. We were stopped everywhere by the police, border control etc.. Paradoxically, you were welcomed warmly everywhere in Europe if you were black back then, that has changed.
posted by mumimor at 2:25 AM on June 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

I wonder if there's an LGBT roadtrip equivalent?

Perhaps Ellen Page's documentary series Gaycation would scratch that itch? (they've just done a special episode on America under Trump)
posted by Secret Sparrow at 6:36 AM on June 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

Lindsy Van Gelder and Pamela Brandt wrote Are You Two . . Together?, a Gay and Lesbian Travel Guide to Europe In the early 90s
posted by brujita at 7:27 AM on June 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

Now I want to write a gay couple in Dracula-land story.
posted by Artw at 7:59 AM on June 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

Several years ago, I drove to Mississippi from Minnesota with a Jewish woman who'd been a volunteer at Freedom Summer. We were headed down to meet with some folks she met that year, with her photographs in tow. (She was working on a book.) As we were driving on the Natchez Trace, she explained to me that Black folks could get themselves in trouble if they were driving a nicer car than the local white people, but also if you were audacious enough to pass white people on the road. You get that? You had to make sure to drive slower than the white people, because if you passed them on the road, showing your car was faster than theirs, you risked your life!
posted by RedEmma at 4:56 AM on June 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

Now I want to write a gay couple in Dracula-land story.

10/10 would read, even though I think Clive Barker wrote a few.
posted by lumpenprole at 2:37 PM on June 16, 2017

I did immediately think of In the Hills, the Cities after posting that.
posted by Artw at 2:40 PM on June 16, 2017

(Those guys did not have a Not Getting Crushed by Immense Flesh Giants guidebook though)
posted by Artw at 2:41 PM on June 16, 2017 [1 favorite]