S1 Ep89: The Green Book: Traveling in the Jim Crow Era
Past Gas
Donut Media
4.9 • 7.2K Ratings
🗓️ 19 July 2021
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today on Past Gas-- what’s the story behind the “Green Book”? For black Americans, traveling by car has historically been an entirely different experience with its own set of challenges and dangers. How did African American trailblazers create their own car culture, compete with Henry Ford, and use cars to tear down barriers?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, what's up? My name is Nolan. I'm from PastGas by Donut Media. We're an automotive history show. |
| 0:04.8 | This week, it's Santa's cold bag. We took all of our listener submissions that we've gotten over the years here |
| 0:10.5 | and we put them all into one episode. Little ideas that weren't long enough for a normal one. |
| 0:15.0 | We put seven ideas into one hour episode. This is super fun. A real grab bag of different |
| 0:22.0 | stories and letters from our listeners, maybe even you. So check out PastGas wherever you get your |
| 0:29.1 | podcast today, PastGas. |
| 0:43.2 | Imagine living in a world where it's dangerous just to drive your car from one town to another. |
| 0:48.5 | Where there's no guarantee you'll have a place to stay even if you have the money to pay for it. |
| 0:53.1 | Where it's dangerous to simply walk into a restaurant to order lunch. |
| 0:56.8 | For African Americans in the United States during segregation, they didn't have to imagine. |
| 1:02.6 | It was their reality. And to cope with the racism they encountered, Black Americans relied on something |
| 1:08.2 | called the Green Book. From the early 1900s until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the safest way for |
| 1:15.6 | Black Americans to travel was the Green Book, a travel guide that detailed the restaurants, hotels, |
| 1:21.5 | barber shops, and stores that were safer African American travels. But what is the story behind the |
| 1:26.6 | Green Book? Who is the man who published it? And how do the Green Book shape car culture for Black |
| 1:32.0 | Americans? Today on PastGas we're talking about the Green Book, the African American experience, |
| 1:37.6 | culture, and history with cars in the US. With the United States's dark past of segregation, |
| 1:43.2 | how did Black people even buy cars? Were there African American car makers competing with Henry |
| 1:48.0 | Ford in the early days? You bet there were. Buckle up and get out before sundown. This is PastGas. |
| 2:07.8 | Yeah man, it's hard to joke after an intro like that. Yeah, pretty heavy intro to come into this with. |
| 2:15.6 | Welcome to PastGas. I'm Nolan Sykes, your host, joined by my other two hosts. We got Joe Weber. |
| 2:22.2 | No catchphrase today. And James Pumphrey. It doesn't matter who we are. What matters is our plan. No |
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