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Episode 6: Candacy Taylor, Author of Overground Railroad: The Green Book Roots of Black Travel in America
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Welcome to We Will Rise: National Parks and Civil Rights. Close your eyes and imagine a national park. Are you picturing waterfalls and mountains? Or do you think of Dr. King's childhood home, Japanese internment camps, and a school that became a battleground for racial integration? National parks aren't just wilderness. They are spaces of remembrance, founded to preserve the stories of who we are and how we came to be. National parks inspire us to do better, be better, to climb mountains both physical and figurative. Join park rangers, researchers, authors and activists as we discuss what liberty and justice for all means on our public lands.
Ranger: Okay, all right. Well, hello, everyone. My name is Kat and I'm a park ranger at Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument. It is my honor to be speaking today with Candacy Taylor, author of Overground Railroad, the Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America. Published from 1936 to 1966, the Green Book was known as the Black Travel Guide to America. Because of segregation throughout the country, not just in the south, it was incredibly dangerous for African Americans to travel. This guidebook helped them to do so more safely. In recent years, awareness of The Green Book has increased, even leading to a Hollywood movie by the same name. This awareness is certainly thanks in part to Ms. Taylor's work. Ms. Taylor is an award-winning author, photographer, and cultural documentarian. Her work has been featured in The New Yorker and The Atlantic. She is a recipient of numerous fellowships and grants, including those from the Hutchins Center for African American Research at Harvard University and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has visited more than 6500 Green Book sites and photographed nearly 300 of them. Welcome, Ms. Taylor.
Ms. Taylor: Well, thank you. I'm glad to be here.
Ranger Kat: Those numbers are amazing. Every time I look at them, I just can't even believe it. But I wanted to start actually with asking how your book tour is going or how it went now that it sounds like you've completed it.
Ms. Taylor: Yes, it's been interesting. It was really great. Clearly, we're still in a pandemic, so that's been an interesting experience. Depending on the part of the country I'm in, they just react to the virus differently. So there's all these different protocols. But it was great to see people come out in all kinds of weather. I ran into a few kind of severe snowstorms, and it was quite exciting. But for the most part, what made this book tour so interesting is that I was covering two books, both the young adult version of Overground Railroad that was just released for ages twelve and up. And then there's, of course, the adult version that came out in 2020. But having this material adapted for a young audience, I wasn't sure how it was going to be received. And I don't have kids, so it was fascinating to see middle school kids and high school kids reacting to this material and really understanding how much they don't know about, you know, they're not being taught about like the Great Migration and basic things. I thought that this book would supplement their knowledge about American history and there was just a lot of fundamental things that were new to them. So I thought, wow, this book is really necessary. And I felt very inspired by just the interest and the intimate stories and a lot of the Q and A I wished were recorded because you really do get a pulse of the country when you hear about people's experiences. So it was great.
Ranger Kat: I'm glad to hear that. And as someone who has a background working with young people, I completely agree with how inspiring it is to work with them and then also how critical it is that this information is shared with them in a way that's accessible to them. So I think it's just magnificent that you made this book for twelve and up. And I'll be honest, that's the book that I read and it was still incredibly in depth and really rich and of course all the primary source materials that you share and yeah, I thought it was still a very advanced book too. It was very rich.
Ms. Taylor: Yeah, we didn't want to dumb it down for them. We really wanted them to rise to the occasion because I think when you do that, people surprise you.
Ranger Kat: Yeah, absolutely. There's so many words that I learned from reading books that for many years I mispronounced because I just saw them in books. So I think that's absolutely such an important space for kids, for young people to be challenged. And I love that you said that because young people, that's how they learn through, like you said, rising to the challenge. So, very cool. Well, great. So as I mentioned, I'm a park ranger at Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument and the Park Service co-owns and co-manages a site that was a part of The Green Book and that's the AG Gaston Motel. And I'm wondering, since this is a site that you touch on in your books, could you take us back in time to the early sixties and paint us a picture of what staying at the Gaston Motel might have been like for African American travelers?
Ms. Taylor: Yeah, the AG Gaston was such a fascinating property for so many reasons. First, it was owned by this man, right? Mr. Gaston, who was the fascinating character and there's books about him. And he owned an insurance company. He had a chain of funeral homes, he had a bank and a farm, a business college and a string of motels, which was really incredible, obviously for anybody, let alone a black man. No. So of course he was part of the crem de la crème of upper crust society for that area of the country because he was such a knowledgeable and successful businessman. And, of course, his hotel was considered the best place for Black people to stay in that part of the country. It had 32 rooms and custom-made furnishings and it was designed to serve this high class clientele. People dressed in their best clothes. They attended parties. There was a dining room with…they had signature cocktails in the lounge and the top musicians of the day played there. And of course, it's most famous for Martin Luther King, Jr's. war room, quote, unquote, where he had incredible meetings, basically strategizing the next stages of the civil rights era. So for all these reasons, it was really a fascinating, important place. And it's one of the examples I use when people ask me about the movie Green Book that came out that really had nothing to do with the Green Book, unfortunately. But when they take Dr. Shirley to Birmingham in the 1960s, that's when the trip, this road trip with his driver happens. And they have The Green Book, which is the whole point of the movie, right. That they're traveling with The Green Book. But basically the place where they put Dr. Shirley is one of the most downtrodden places where, of course, he's used to nicer and finer things in life and he's very uncomfortable. And the whole point of The Green Book was so that you had options. And had they really been using The Green Book, they would have gone to the AG Gaston because that's where Dr. Shirley would have, you know, felt the most, where he would have gone. To me, it was such an iconic place. And people, as I'm sure you know better than I do the impact it left on the community and people who remember that from their childhoods. It was very special.
Ranger Kat: Yeah, incredibly special. One of the things that we're hoping to do this June is oral histories around AG and Minnie Gaston, his wife, whose role has really gone underreported, and to sort of shed some light on not just the movement activities, but the role that the Motel played in the community, exactly what you just shared. And that's another aspect of Black culture that has gone underreported in history. So we're looking forward to working with our partners on that.
Ms. Taylor: That sounds great. Yeah.
Ranger Kat: I'll let you know more about those details. I think that you might be interested in that, too.
Ms. Taylor: Please do.
Ranger Kat: I will. I want to pivot to national parks and the role of national parks in The Green Book. You wrote, quote, it was unusual to see national parks marketed to Black Americans. Although approximately 50 million vacationers visited national parks in the more than 90% of them were white. Can you explain to our listeners what prevented African Americans from visiting these places?
Ms. Taylor: First of all, when you think about what national parks are and where they're located, they're generally in rural areas because it's in places of nature. Right?
Ranger Kat: Right.
Ms. Taylor: And just as a generalization, many Black people who traveled would avoid rural areas especially areas they weren't familiar with, because then some of those areas if you got lost, or if you're in the wrong place, or, you know, there were sundown towns throughout the country, and sundown towns were all white communities, and they were all white on purpose. And there would be a sign at the county line saying, “N word, don't let the sun set on here.” And there were just fewer options if you ran into trouble, if you had car trouble, anything, if you were in a more remote area, there were could be severe consequences. So, as a rule, most Black folks gravitated towards a bigger cities, and when they went on vacation or went to see family, they would stay in the cities or places that were more populated, that had Black communities, where there were more Black people. And that's what The Green Book was so brilliant at, was getting you to those centers where there was a Black hairdresser, or tailor, or obviously a restaurant or hotel. So national parks were not really on the radar for most Black Americans. And even today, and even when I was doing the research for this book, there are still campaigns, and I'm sure you can speak to this more than I can, of really trying to get Black folks to come to the national parks. We're still, I believe the last statistic I read was less than 10%, and some, I think in 2009 it was 1% of the people who were coming to national parks were Black. So it has been an issue from the beginning. And even in 1922, there was a debate in the Yosemite National Park, basically determining whether national parks could exclude Black Americans altogether. And it was decided that, I think they said, while Black people couldn't be openly discriminated against, they should be told that the parks have no facilities for taking care of them. So the idea was you could maybe get into the park, but you couldn't use the facilities, or you'd have to find facilities that were just for you. And that was obviously something most people didn't want to deal with. So it was easier to just avoid national parks. Thankfully, in the 1952 edition of The Green Book, there were 27 national parks listed, but depending on where you were in the country, the Shenandoah National Park, Great Smoky Mountains would have colored, quote unquote campgrounds in separate swimming and picnic areas. And the last thing I'll say about maybe a reason why it was different for Black folks, I mean, even in my own family, the idea of the threat of being lynched, my stepfather's cousin was run out of town by the Ku Klux Klan, and oftentimes that image of running through the woods for your life was a real part of our history. And I've seen that image in films and television series for years. But it wasn't until I started writing this book that I realized that that even happened in my own family, and I hadn't known about it. So yeah, woods and rural spaces are complicated for Black people. Black Americans at least.
Ranger Kat: Yeah. It's an ongoing challenge in the Park Service and one that there was a Centennial Document that came out in 2016. It marked the hundred years of the existence of the Park Service. And one of the top priorities is diversifying staff and visitation to national parks. And so there is, like a stated intention to do so, but of course, the numbers are what sort of demonstrate how well we're doing. Of course, those are the metrics, and there's still a lot of room for improvement. Speaking of improvement, one of the things I really appreciated about your book is the fact that you really shine a light on the female entrepreneurs in The Green Book. And as I mentioned earlier, one of the things that we're really striving to improve upon in our storytelling is making sure that we're uncovering the history of female entrepreneurs as it relates to Birmingham and then making that a priority in the narrative that we share with the public. And that was something I really appreciated about your book as well. And so I wanted to ask if you could maybe share some of the stories or a story of a female entrepreneur that most resonated with you and why that most resonated with you.
Ms. Taylor: Yeah, this was a nice surprise as I was doing the research, because there's a whole chapter in my book dedicated to women in the Green Book for this reason, because it wasn't just that… My gosh, this was a time when women couldn't even have a bank account or credit card, and yet they ran businesses. Right? And these were largely, mostly Black women. I mean, there were about 900 beauty shops in The Green Brook that were largely run by women. And this was a place where you didn't just go and get your hair done. They were social centers where they were political, they were community-based centers. The NAACP was considered a radical organization at this time. And so if you wanted literature from the NAACP, you didn't have it sent to your house, you would have it sent to the beauty shop. And if you, you know, voting day, hairstylists would literally stop, shut down the shop and drive their customers to the voting booths. They were very important part of Black culture. So you had hair salons, you had over 1400 tourist homes, which were homes that were run largely by widowed Black women, and they would have an extra bedroom and a warm meal, and it was kind of among the first Airbnbs. And that was a big part of The Green Book. And for all those migrant families who were fleeing racial terror in the south and moving north because of the Great Migration, this was a real viable, really great option for those who were in rural areas where there weren't commercial businesses and/or didn't have as much money to stay in a hotel or a motel. So for that reason, women played a big role. But one of my favorite female entrepreneurs is Ma Haugabrooks. Well, her name was Geneva, but people called her Ma, and she was based out of Atlanta, and she ran Haugabrooks Funeral Home. And there were funeral homes in The Green Book. The Green Book was like a yellow pages of Black businesses. It was pretty amazing. What other travel guide is going to have funeral homes in it? It's bizarre and great at the same time. But she ran this really successful funeral home, and she was one of those women who her husband had died long before. I mean, she did this all on her own, and she was known as the woman who, quote, unquote, ran Atlanta. And she had so much wealth and so much power. She would, for instance, go to the Cadillac dealership. And one time she wasn't treated well by the person working the floor. He was a sales agent, and he was rude to her. And the manager saw this and fired him on the spot. And he said, you do not treat Ms. Haugabrooks like that. You know who she is. She buys three or four Cadillacs at a time. One of her employees at the funeral home,he was arrested, they wouldn't take him to jail. They would take him to Ma. The cops, the white police officers would take this person to Ma Haugabrooks and say, what do you want us to do with them?
Ranger Kat: Wow.
Ms. Taylor: It was just incredible. And she was so beloved, and celebrities loved her. There's photographs of her with celebrities. There's a photograph of her in my book. And I just loved listening, hearing stories about her. I did a project with Library of Congress where I interviewed a family member, the Haugabrooks family, and he tells stories about Ma Haugabrooks, and those are archived at the Library of Congress. If you Google my name and The Green Book, those interviews will come up. But yeah, if I had to pick one, there's also other incredible women. But she stands out in my mind today.
Ranger Kat: So my next question has to do with the financial burden of Blackness. In chapter three titled The Fight, you detail what the African American community was really up against in terms of institutional racism. You point out that tax-paying African Americans were barred from many basic public services, some, of course, we've already discussed, but additionally, libraries and schools. And you give the example of the $100 billion GI Bill, which was in effect from 1944 through 1971, and how during the height of racial discrimination, the federal government left distribution of these funds up to states. And as a result, quote, only two Black men were recipients of the 3229 Veterans Administration loans distributed in Mississippi in 1947, unquote. And of course, that's obviously data from one state in one year, but it certainly illustrates how white American families were able to gain access to federal dollars while African Americans were not able to. And how were those funds used? You give the example of how families, white families, went on to purchase homes that are often now worth ten times the original purchase price, generating wealth for the white middle class. There are many other examples, of course, of the financial burden of Blackness, but this one really stands out to me because homeownership especially is so critical in the generation of family wealth. I know this is a big question, and many people are discussing this question, but I'm wondering, do you think the federal government has a responsibility in addressing these wealth inequities? And if so, what do you suggest should be done?
Ms. Taylor: Right. I mean, yeah, it is a big question, and it's kind of above my pay grade to even give the answer about what should be done, because I don't know what the government is set up to do, but I know what they have done in the past, which is give incredibly large white entitlement programs to build a white middle class. And they've done it many times throughout our history. So the fact that we somehow never seem to have money for Black middle class folks or Black impoverished communities, that we've actually disinvested into these communities, we've taken money out of the Black communities and put it into white suburban communities, and we continue to do this. So it's a choice. I mean, I think, if anything, obviously people like Ta-Nehisi Coates, and there's so many great scholars out of Harvard that are really getting into the minutiae of where the money is, where it's been, what it's been spent on, and what it could be spent on. Robert Sampson, who's written many books about this, and obviously Ta-Nehisi Coates’s article on reparations, I think is the real push towards understanding how it's not that it was slavery. Right? I think this is an abstract concept that because we were enslaved as Black people we deserve reparations. There are injustices and injuries that have happened within our lifetime and within our parent’s lifetimes where we can see why the disparity exists. And I don't know, again, like, what the solution is, but there are so many examples now, I think there's a website, and I forget what's called, it’s something like where's your land? Where Black people can type into a register and see, like, if their land was literally taken from their ancestors or their grandparents and given to white people. And so there's obviously those situations where it was clearly taken from us. And there are some few minor court legislation that's been returned. This land has been returned to people where it was taken from or money has been given, but it's just minuscule. I mean, we're just at the very beginning of unearthing these realities. So I think we're moving in the right direction, but not enough is happening. And not quick enough. And the devastation that I saw on the road documenting these Green Book sites in these traditional Black communities, the level of poverty and violence is just unacceptable. And it's not that Black people are more violent or less able to make a living. It's the social structure and societal systems that have created this situation. So I think if the government can create these situations, they can solve the problem. If they created the problem, they can solve it. So how they do that, Lord knows how the government works, but I think it is on the government. I think it is their responsibility to do it because they've done it before. We've done it, like I said, for the white middle class. And I think that if the excuse of saying that we don't have the money to do it for black middle class is just an excuse and it's about whether or not you intend to or want to change to fix the problem, and we keep getting the same answers that it's not a priority
Ranger Kat: Well, hopefully there's positive change in that arena soon. My next question is about white allies, and in the book you mentioned a few businesses who were Black-friendly and have their services listed in the Green Book. Can you give a few examples and maybe explain the risks that these individuals and institutions faced and perhaps what enabled them to take the stand they did?
Ms. Taylor: Yeah, I think it's hard to know, obviously exactly what…because if I had to estimate, about 85% of the Green Book sites were Black-owned. But there were so many white businesses, Jewish-owned businesses, that did participate in The Green Book, especially in the later editions in the 1960s. And this, of course, is when I think people saw the writing on the wall after 1954. Sorry, there's a siren. I live in New York City, so it's probably going to get louder and I don't know if I can mute, but maybe it's not going to pass in front of my house. Okay, but yeah, these white allies, I think they saw the writing on the wall after 1954 in the Brown versus Board of Education. There was kind of an imminent reality that there was going to be integration once we started integrating the schools. It was just a matter of time before restaurants and other public spaces would be integrated. So you see more in the later editions, these Brooks Brothers, Disneyland, more of the businesses that maybe were downtown, because in nearly every major and even mid-sized city, 80%, 90% of all the Green Book sites were in Black neighborhoods. They were in these redlined communities, these communities that were cornered. They were literally divided up. And in the north, throughout the South, I mean, they were just very segregated communities. So you start seeing a sprinkling of white businesses participating in the Green Book, and I think they've faced the same threats that in any, even Black businesses face from, you know, there was a woman who was a major business owner of The Green Book who had a place in Columbia, South Carolina, and her place would get shot up by the Ku Klux Klan pretty regularly. They'd shoot up her sign, and she'd fight with them and threaten them, and they threatened her. There was a lot of clashing. There were a lot of people who were not okay with integration. So I do write I think it's in chapter four. You may remember it because you read the book probably more recently than I did, but where Victor green actually writes to Nebraska and south Dakota or North Dakota, sorry, and parts of Montana where he's writing to these white businesses saying, would you be a part? Almost every business in that state was white, and there were no Black neighborhoods that he could rely on to get businesses to list. And the letters that they write him back, the excuses of why they can't do it or why they don't want to alienate their white customers, and they just don't feel like it would be a place where black people would feel comfortable anyway. And I think that largely speaks to the attitude of the time. So that's why I think Balck travel guides like The Green Book were so incredibly important and such a unique opportunity for black people to be in other parts of the country, because without it, it was so dangerous and very difficult, nearly impossible, to know that you could feel safe and to know that you would have placed asleep or food to eat while you were traveling.
Ranger Kat: One of the things that I really enjoyed reading about in the green book had to do with the role of music. As a big fan of all sorts of music and dance myself, I was really interested in that section of the book. And there was a quote by Sugar Pie DeSanto, and I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, her last name. She was a cousin of Etta James, and she said this quote about the Filmore district. The crowd was mixed, and for a while the police didn't like it. They hassled us for a while, but we told the cops to leave us alone. We didn't care about color. We cared about music. Unquote. And music in the book, the way you described it, it seemed like it was this opportunity to bring people together. And so I'm wondering if you could talk more about the role that music played in the green book and perhaps in changing attitudes around race.
Ms. Taylor: Well, music, I think music and food have always been the kind of leveling of humanity, right? That's why I think segregation never could have ultimately worked as much as they tried to keep the races separate. There are many instances of different business owners I interviewed who were black businesses, but because the food was so good, they would have to come to their restaurant and even if it was in a state where segregation was illegal. There's a great drop in New Orleans, the whole state of Louisiana. It was illegal for white, black people to be in the same room together. And they would shut it down or arrest people every so often because white people couldn't stay away from the Dew Drop. But the best music was there. And the person who owned the Dew Drop was so irritated after a while because it was right before, of course, in 64, everything changed because they changed the laws. But he was just tired of getting arrested himself or having to deal with it because he couldn't control whether white people wanted to come. Black people weren't allowed to go to the French Quarter, so they went to the Dew Drop because that's where the best music was. But I think that's always been the truth about America, is that what Black folks bring to the culture is so undeniably exceptional and unique, and something only we can do as Black people that white folks want to be a part of it. Right? And so I think that's always been the, like I said, the leveling of humanity. People do forget about a lot of the petty, ridiculous things that maybe make us different. When the music moves you in the same place in your body. And it's about being human. So music played a huge role, and there were over 1000 nightclubs in The Green Book throughout the life of the publication for over 30 years. There's another part of in that chapter on music, the Charlie's Place, that story too. I recommend your listeners read that because that's an incredible piece of history, where it gets shot up by the Ku Klux Klan. But it's a music venue that was so important. I mean, that could be a film in and of itself, just Charlie's Place, and they're trying to bring it back to life today. I think it's history, but it's still living with us, and I think it still speaks to whether we're talking today about sports, the NFL. It's always going to be an issue where Black talent has just risen above and beyond what anybody even imagined it could be. And the way that we incorporate that in our culture, in a fair way in society, we've never been able to really pull that off. So we see it in segregation during that time of the Jim Crow era, but we still see it today.
Ranger Kat: Speaking of Black excellence, I think certainly the Greens and Victor Green, who was the creator of The Green Book, are an incredible example of that. So Victor and Alma Green were a married couple, and Victor Green, obviously, is the person who is credited with starting The Green Book. But I'm curious, could you let us know what you think it's important for listeners to understand about the two of them?
Ms. Taylor: Oh, yeah, Victor and Alma were fabulous. They lived in Harlem. They lived in the Sugar Hill District of Harlem, which is even more…some of your listeners may know, but it was the place where…it was such a popular neighborhood. It was called, like, the Sweet life if you were in Sugar Hill District. Beautiful brownstones and luminaries. Langston Hughes and Zora Neal Hurston and Thurgood Marshall lived there. They lived across the street from Duke Ellington. And Victor and Alma weren't celebrities, necessarily, but they really fit in. And they didn't have a lot of money, but they had a lot of class and just dressed beautifully. There are reports that even interviewed Alma Green's nieces, her niece. And they remember going to their house in the 50s, and Alma would still have her fuzzy slippers on, and she was even dressed at home in her kind of beautiful fabrics. And they just had an air of class and just felt very, I think, entitled in ways that a lot of Black Americans at the time didn't feel. And for instance, Victor, before the first Green Book was published in Harlem, but very soon after, he went down to Midtown, which was unusual for a Black man to be in Midtown, to go to a public printer with a Jewish family, the Gibraltar Printing Company. And he walks in there. He's over 6ft tall. He's very tall, he's dashing. He's again dressed in a suit. And he walks in there with an opportunity for them saying, I have this travel guide, and I think you should print it. And the son at the time, Howard Glenner, who was probably seven years old, sees this very tall Black man, and he says he wouldn't have even been served at the Greek Diner down the street. So it was really shocking for him to just walk in there and say, hey, I have an opportunity for you. And they end up printing The Green Book for many, many years, and it is a great opportunity for them, and they make a lot of money on it. And then he leaves them because he goes to a better printer that has this new offset printing technology so he could have bigger pictures. So, again, this is a man with a 7th grade education.
Ranger Kat: Wow.
Ms. Taylor: And yet has the chutzpa to continue the Jewish story. I mean, he has that entitlement in himself that, yeah, no, I have this very exciting opportunity for us to benefit from. So I think…I always say…and Alma too. I mean, she was an incredible part of the story and the success of The Green Book. I'm happy to report that both Alma and Victor are being inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame this year, and I'll be accepting the award on their behalf, which is amazing. But when they approached me, they said, we want Alma and Victor to receive this award. I'm thrilled. And by the time, 1959, Alma is actually the editor and publisher of The Green Book. And then she runs the Green Book until like the early sixty’s and then it's taken over by Langley Waller. Victor Green dies in 1960, so he never lived to see the passage of Civil Rights Act. But it's an incredible, they were an incredible couple. They never had children. She married him when she was 27 years old, which was definitely older for that generation of women. And they were together for 43 years. So they're wonderful couple and I'm happy, like I said, to celebrate them. And they'll be in the Automotive Hall of Fame.
Ranger Kat: Well, on the theme of family, I have a question about your family. And of course this book represents an incredible amount of academic research, but it is at times deeply personal. And throughout the book you reference the experiences of your stepfather, Ron Burford. Am I pronouncing that last name correctly?
Ms. Taylor: Yeah.
Ranger Kat: And you also dedicate the book to your mother, Carol Burford, who fought incredibly hard for your education, even moving the family from Houston to Ohio so you could receive the highest quality education possible. And you write that it is because of her that you were able to become an author and an artist. I'm curious, what was their response to the book when it came out?
Ms. Taylor: Well, it's such an incredible…I guess things don't happen by accident, but it was never intended that this book would be so personal. But because while I was doing the research, my stepfather, Ron, I'd known him since I was twelve and he never told me…He grew up in the Jim Crow South and he was a dark skinned Black man. And he would talk all the time. He loved to tell stories and he's this man from the south and he would just talk our ear off sometimes. But he never shared really intimate stories or things that really happened, especially in regards to race and racism that he dealt with. But when I started writing this book, all of a sudden he was just telling me all of these stories that I never knew. And we developed a very close relationship that we had never had. I mean, we weren't estranged or anything, we just weren't really…he was a big marine, he had a lot of testosterone. He was really masculine and I just didn't get it. I just thought, I don't get you. But we loved each other and he was definitely on my side. He was a great stepdad, but we just weren't really… was closer to my mom. But when I guess I started writing this book, he became a huge part of my life. And I spend all of these just 16 hours, days on the road, just driving, and he would call me and we would talk for hours. You know, throughout these years I was writing the book. So he dies literally the week I start to sit down and write the book, after I've been on the road and doing all the scholarly research. I leave Harvard, I'm on the road for almost six months, and then I finally sit down to write, and I have like eight months to write the book. And he died. And it devastated me and I just couldn't function. I'd wake up every morning, I wasn’t busy at the time, just on a deck staring the Disney Mountains, and I was watching the sun come up. And I would just cry and write his stories because I didn't want to forget the things he had told me while I was on the road. And I remember telling my agent, saying, I know I'm supposed to be writing the book, but I'm just writing stories right now. And I know I'm going to open the book where he tells me the story about the chauffer's hat.
Ranger Kat: That piece just like gutted me.
Ms. Taylor: Oh my God. And that never would have been in there had he not died. I probably wouldn't have done it because he was kind of a private guy, but he loved being the center of attention. So I know he's looking down on this thinking, yeah, he's very thrilled because he is such a big part of anybody who interviews me about this book, they have to talk about Ron. Yeah, that story was so poignant for me. So I opened the book with that story, and then I realized that his stories were touchstones in almost every chapter of the book. And so he becomes a narrative thread. Like, again, he never would have had he not died. And then at the end of the book, writing the book, I wrote it chronologically, and I'm in the last part, and I know my mother gets sick and she's in the hospital and it doesn't look good. And I woke up that morning and I said, I'm not going to turn my phone on because I know…I was supposed to write the passage where at the beginning of the book, Ron is seven years old. He's in the backseat of the car. They get pulled over by sheriff, and the chauffer's hat is used as a ruse. His father lies and basically says, this isn't my car, it's my employer's car, because he had a nice car and this was usually antagonizing for white police officers. And so Ron realizes there's this chauffeur's hat hanging in the backseat of the car that has always been there, but it's never used and never knew what it was for. But his father basically said, you know, you've got to just not… on't say anything. I'm going to you know, when the cop pulled him over and he pretends he doesn't know his wife and he says, this is my employer's car. This is the maid. And I'm driving her and her son home, and they get to go without any incident. So I knew the beginning of the book was that story. The end of the book was going to be the story about me in the front seat of the car with my mom at seven years old, and we're driving past a chain gang in Texas, and I'm looking at all these men chained up in a field. And I say to my mom, I said, the first thing I said, I was like, Mum, I thought slavery was over. And she said, oh, it is, honey. Why are all these men chained up in the field? Like, it looked just like the images I'd seen in my book in school of slaves. I said, Why are they all chained up? I thought, you know, I was mad. What is going on here? And my mother says, oh, well, they're prisoners. Why are they in chains? She's like, oh, they're prisoners. And I thought, Why are they all Black? And she just couldn't explain institutional racism to a seven year old. I wanted to have that conversation, but I never forgot it. And I knew I was going to write that passage that morning. And then I turned my phone on after I write it, and I find out that she died. So it was so intense to lose both of them in the beginning and the end stages of writing this book. And then, like you said, I dedicated the young adult version to my mom, which came out a couple of months ago because she taught me how to read and write before I went to kindergarten. She spent so much time with me when I was so young, and she fought for me, like you said. She pulled me out of a school because in Texas, where I went to school, there were no Black kids in the A level reading classes. And my mother knew I belonged in the A level reading class. And this one teacher would just harass me, and she was so mean to me. And my mother goes to the school and makes her cry, basically, and threatens her. I know what you're doing. I know that this is about Candacy being Black. She taught me how to read and write. She's like, of course she's in the A level reading course. This was in third grade. And she pulled me out of that school. We moved to Ohio where her parents lived, and I test into the fifth grade, and she just knew in that environment I was going to be held back. So I was just so lucky and grateful to have had a mother like that. Of course, Ron didn't get to see the book because he had passed, and my mother didn't get to either. And it just the thing that just breaks my heart open every time. But again, the way that it happened was so cosmic or just…it was just so crazy that yes, I just feel like there's bigger forces at work here and that I will never understand. But I'm thankful that they get to be a part of this legacy with the book. I just wish they could share it with me.
Ranger Kat: You brought up something that I also was hoping to touch upon in the Epilogue. The whole discussion on incarceration and that story of you as a little girl observing the chain gang in a very savvy way, asking your mother about is slavery actually over? When you're seeing this group of entirely Black men laboring. And that personal anecdote, you use that to kind of lead us into…lead the readers into a number of very disturbing statistics. Such as in Chicago's Black community, where there's an imprisonment rate for drug convictions that's over 40 times higher than the surrounding white communities. Even though these white communities had drug use rates that matched the Black communities. And I'm just going to repeat that: 40 times higher. And the money that is poured into maintaining the prison system is absolutely astronomical. You write, quote, when asked why these Black neighborhoods are fraught with problems, the typical answer is that there isn't enough money for education, housing, after school programs, libraries, parks, and grocery stores. But this argument is clearly unreasonable because somehow the government spends approximately $80 billion, $80 billion locking up Americans for nonviolent offenses and petty crimes such as unpaid traffic tickets, shoplifting, and minor parole violations. In some states, it costs $60,000 a year to incarcerate one person. Imagine how that money could be redirected to support communities instead of tearing them down. Unquote. Who or what organizations or people do you see that are trying to change this, and how might people get involved?
Ms. Taylor: I think it's such a huge problem, really. It's the thing that keeps me up at night, and it has for probably the last ten years. One of my biggest fears when I was writing this book was like, how am I going to basically, I just didn't want people to say, this book about The Green Book. How do you write about mass incarceration in the same book? And like you said, to me, it's more of the same. And the threat is very clear in terms of what we do today. But I think people like Brian Stevenson, obviously, and his work is…it's really important. I think obviously there have been feeble and minor attempts to change because even the Republicans now realize that the money we spend on incarceration, it's just we can't… we can't afford it anymore, and we can't maintain all of these prisons. And I live in New York. Rikers is about to be shut down because it's so deeply dangerous. The violations that are happening, health code violations, things that are just really basic, we can't maintain the system anymore. It's the biggest incarcerate…we incarcerate more people in the world than anybody else. Again, follow Brian Stevenson's statistics on this. It's really unbelievable. When I was in the front seat of my mom's car, there were about maybe 250,000 people in jail, or no, I'm sorry, there were about 750,000. And now there's no there were 250,000. Now there's 2.2 million people in jail just from and this was after The Green Book, you know, so I follow…there are things you can do. I mean, in my book, I have a short list. What can you do? Most people who have 401Ks don't realize that they are funding the prison industrial complex that you'd have to call your fiduciaries or financial accountants and see. But most definitely between 60 and 80% of people who have no idea that they are against this mass incarceration, but they are funding it. So first of all, don't fund the prison industrial complex. That's one thing you can do. There's other minor things. I mean, even just the Sentencing Project is a really good organization that's doing important work. There's a lot of people sitting in jail who shouldn't be there and have been in there for decades, and they are helping to reverse to right some of those wrongs. Even from my Amazon account, everything I shop on with Amazon, I think it's called the Smile Program, but when I log in under Smile, I've set it so that a percentage of all the things, all the money I spend on Amazon goes to The Sentencing Project. So that's one thing you can do. The Prison Policy Initiative is a really interesting organization that's I'm sorry. The Prison Policy Initiative is an organization that's really doing interesting work. One of the ways this has grown to be such an astronomical problem is because it's been so under the radar. Before we knew it, there were millions of people in jail, and people were like, how did that happen? How did this…the Million Dollar Blocks program was another one that I was studying when I was writing the book, where they would show in places like Chicago, where 80% of the community have been rounded up and put in jail. Like, how does this happen? And because it's happening in places where it's largely Black and Brown, mostly Black communities where they have no institutional power, they're not part of society in a real way, where people care about what's happening to them. And it has been going on for generations now. And this is where we're at. So I feel like it's a very…the numbers matter. And who's tracking this behavior and these consequences? It matters. And so, the Prison Policy Initiative is one of those organizations that seems to start getting real numbers. And the last thing I'll say about this is I've been working on a project. I did a digital interactive map with National Geographic, and I started touching on these things I'm finding with these sundown towns. There were thousands of them. And for people who want to learn more about them, James Loewen is a leading researcher on sundown towns. He wrote a book called Sundown Towns. But looking at his research and creating my own map based on his research of sundown towns, I started seeing where there are some parallels or overlaps where you can see this kind of prison gerrymandering that's starting to happen or it probably has been happening. But again, we don't have the numbers on this, but where we see places that were formerly sundown towns, which were all white, had been 99% white for decades, all of a sudden we'll start having maybe five or 8% Black and Brown people, sometimes even 10%. And then you look closer and you realize all the Black and Brown people are in their private prisons. They're not actually citizens.
Ranger Kat: Oh my goodness.
Ms. Taylor: And so, of course, when you increase your numbers like that, you get more legislative power in Washington. There's benefits to this, right? So I'd like to know how often that's happening. I started doing some of the research there, but we are just on the cusp of even understanding the magnitude of the problem. And of course, I can't not mention Michelle Alexander's work, The New Jim Crow and her book and obviously Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th, for people who don't want to read a whole book, just watch 13th and you'll get a snapshot of what's happening. And that's on Netflix. But yeah, we have a lot of work to do. And if we want to continue to basically believe that we live in a free and fair society, we've got to fix this problem. And I don't think it will be fixed in our lifetime. But we have to reverse, we have to stop the bleeding. It is just inhumane. So, yeah, it's a huge issue and I hope people care about it enough to do something.
Ranger Kat: Well, thank you for lifting up all those names and organizations. I was not aware of the 401K issue and that's something I'll look into myself personally. So, again, thank you for sharing that. And in the vein of, like, thinking down the road, the mission of the National Parks is near and dear to my heart and it's to set aside spaces for the recreation, education and inspiration of this generation and the next. And I’m paraphrasing that. The Green Book helped African Americans to recreate and National Parks more safely. Green Book sites are also becoming national parks, as is the case here in Birmingham with the AG Gaston Motel. What are some things that our site and others can do to commemorate The Green Book?
Ms. Taylor: Well, I think definitely having some kind of…I love what you're doing, clearly. I mean, even just having this podcast and announcing to people that this is happening, but I think having some kind of visual…I do have an exhibition with the Smithsonian. I'm a curator and content specialist for an exhibition on The Green Book. But having a small version of that to show people what The Green Book was, why it was significant, and making sure that people…putting maybe QR codes that lead to other content about this history, whether it's even with the Library of Congress has archived of interviews, but featuring how we cannot just look to our past, I think that's the part that is really a blessing and a curse about history, right? Because there are those of us who love history and will eat this stuff up no matter where we see it. We find it, we seek it out and we love it. But then there are other people who think, well, it was in the past and they just dismiss it. But I think using modern technology and ways to engage people by understanding that a lot of our present, not as only informed by our past, but it's still kind of happening, these layers still happen. So I think, like I said, putting QR codes or different ways of people engaging in this history and retelling their own stories in relationship to these histories that may resonate with them, asking them to contribute their own, you know, maybe parent’s photographs or ways to get people excited about being a part of reimagining this history, right? So I think that's how you get people really invested emotionally. And I hope that again, of course, you and I can talk about this, different ways to do this. And my exhibition with the Smithsonian is about 3500 square feet. So it's very large. But if we have a smaller version of that, maybe it can go to different sites like this because it's very unusual and exciting for the AG Gaston to actually, as a Green Book site, to be celebrated in line with the National Park. That's a first. And so I think more organizations that find those opportunities we had. The first venue for our exhibition was in Memphis at the National Civil Rights Museum because that was the old hotel where King was assassinated. That was in The Green Book. So that was another example where an institution and a museum was actually a Green Book site. And we have a couple of other examples of that in the country. Again, your part is…part of being the National Parks and wanting to really embrace and embolden Black culture and have it be a part of the National Park System. That's progress for all of us.
Ranger Kat: I love the QR code idea. We'll look into that. Is there any question you wish I had asked or any last message you'd like to share with listeners?
Ms. Taylor: I think we covered a lot. For the most part. I'm just excited that this material continues to affect, you know, people…like organizations like the National Park Service. I would love to talk a little more about preservation and how important that is in getting the National Park System and the National Registrar to really embrace these Green Book sites. I did get a grant from National Park System…National Park Service to rewrite the context on how these Green Book sites should be considered because most of them were located in traditional Black neighborhoods which were marginalized from basic municipalities. Whether they were put in flood zones or different areas that was harder to keep up those properties in a pristine form that sometimes the National Register requires be considered valuable. So we're really trying to change that thinking, that something can be culturally significant and not architecturally perfect. So really getting the…changing that dynamic and that attitude has been the work I've been doing more recently this year. And I don't know if your speakers are local or national, but I'll be speaking at the Washington State Museum in Tacoma, Washington on May 19 because the Smithsonian exhibition is currently there. So for folks in that area of the country that want to see the exhibit or possibly see me, I'll be doing a book signing on May 19.
Ranger Kat: Great. That's good to know. Yeah. To be honest, I'm not sure how many listeners we have yet. It's a new podcast, and my technological savvy leaves much to be desired, but thank you for sharing that.
Ms. Taylor: Oh, you're going to archive this, so. It will grow and live in the archives.
Ranger Kat: Yes. And that's 100% true. And then everything that we produce is in the public domain. So, yeah, that's the hope, is that it will live on forever. So, thank you again so much, Ms. Taylor, for speaking with me today. It truly has been a pleasure and an honor. And I will definitely be reaching back out so we can discuss more concretely, some ways where we can incorporate your work with the Smithsonian and your book and beyond into what we're doing at the AG Gaston Motel. And exciting news on our end. The proposed budget for the next fiscal year has come out, and there's been a significant amount of money slated for the interior renovations of the AG Gaston Motel on the Park Service side. Yes. So we're thrilled about that. And so in the next couple of years, there will be concerted effort to do design and installation of the exhibits within the motel. So I'm sure we'll be reaching out in regards to that. And, yeah, we look forward to hopefully also in the future, hosting you in Birmingham and having the opportunity for you to share more of this research, hopefully in person with people as well.
Ms. Taylor: Yeah, let me know when you have more of the events coming up or things happening. Let me know. It sounds like nothing will be happening this year, but I think I'll be in the south. Well, I know I'm doing two talks in Oklahoma and one in Mississippi because the exhibition is moving to the Mississippi Museums in August. So I'll be probably traveling to the south this summer.
Ranger Kat: Okay, well, there may be a potential opportunity there as well. I'll reach back out and we can connect on that, too.
Ms. Taylor: Okay, that sounds great.
Ranger Kat: Great. Well, thank you so much. I hope you have a good rest of your day, and I hope you are able to have some downtime now that the book tour is complete, to just rest.
Ms. Taylor: No, it doesn't work that way for me. I'm on the road. It's like all the stuff that I didn't get to because I was on the road is now piled up me. I get, like, 80 emails a day and all this stuff, so it's like and then I leave again in a month, so I've already got to start booking that travel today. So, yeah, it's kind of a whirlwind, but it's better than not having stuff going on.
Ranger Kat: That's true. It's better than the alternative, but it's true. Right.
Ms. Taylor: But thanks for wishing. I appreciate the sentiment.
Ranger Kat: Yeah. Well, again, thank you so much and just really so honored to be connected with you and excited for the work you've done and truly look forward to everything that you'll continue to bring to the conversation around this history going forward.
Ms. Taylor: I appreciate it too. Thanks for the work you're doing as well, and I look forward to hearing from you soon. Okay, sounds great. All right, take care. Bye bye.
This is We Will Rise. National Parks and Civil Rights. Thanks to the Psalters for use at their song Turn Me Round. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our series. Until next time [music continues].
Description
Author Candacy Taylor discusses the Green Book, known as the “Black travel guide to America.” The conversation spans Black female entrepreneurs, the role of music and clubs in racial integration, and the prison-industrial complex.
Date Created
08/29/2022
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