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Driving the Green Book

The Nettles of Nashville

Driving the Green Book

Macmillan

Society & Culture

4.41.1K Ratings

🗓️ 12 October 2020

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We head to Nashville to trace the legacy of Jim Crow, segregation, and The Negro Motorist Green Book through different generations of one family: The Nettles. We also pay tribute to the female entrepreneurs who provided vital services to the African American community, but went unrecognized in The Green Book and throughout history.

Visit www.drivingthegreenbook.com or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/greenbookpod for more, including bonus content, photos, and transcripts.

Driving the Green Book is now a book, available now from HarperOne! Get your copy of Driving the Green Book: A Road Trip Through the Living History of Black Resistance, from your local independent bookstore, or from Amazon and Bookshop.org on the web.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

The Negro Motorists Green Book is actually a byproduct of a great migration that occurred

0:20.4

from 1910 to 1970.

0:23.2

During that period in America's history, over 6 million African Americans left the South

0:28.2

to move north and west for better opportunities in all areas of their lives.

0:33.9

Jobs, housing, fair treatment, a better future for their children.

0:38.8

With their new financial status, many found ways to avoid the commonplace indignities of Jim

0:44.5

Crow, especially on public transportation and in places where they shopped.

0:50.2

For many African Americans who traveled back and forth to the same places to visit Ken

0:54.6

folk and friends, the need for the Green Book diminished.

0:58.6

As it did, fewer and fewer people talked about the publication.

1:03.0

As a result, many children and grandchildren of those who participated in the Great Migration

1:08.5

may not have been told anything about the actual Green Book, although they most certainly

1:13.8

would have been told about the times that necessitated its creation.

1:24.9

I'm Alvin Hall, your host on Drive in the Green Book by McMillan Podcast.

1:29.8

As our producer, Janay Woods, where and I drove from Detroit to New Orleans, we met

1:34.2

fascinating people.

1:36.3

Some only recently familiar with the Green Book.

1:39.7

In this episode, we're in Nashville, where we met with young professionals Anna Nettles

1:45.2

and Crystal Churchwell, both in their early thirties.

1:49.2

They told us about their first encounter with the Green Book and the extended family history

1:53.7

that unspooled as a result.

1:58.4

When you first got one in your hand, Anna, what did you think when you opened it up and

...

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