We are the baby-boomers, celebratory births
conceived and born after World War II.
We lived in our all white world,
walked to elementary school in Mary Janes
and white lacey ankle socks.
We were the oblivious ones
riding from Chicago to Florida.
Family vacations to grandma’s
excited to buy Orange Blossom eau de cologne
and praline candies at rest stops.
We had no idea Black families
used The Green Book for the same trip.
Dog-eared pages marked “friendly” towns.
Listed cafes, motels, and gas stations
where Negroes were welcome.
We didn’t know anybody named Jim Crow.
As young kids, we blindly sipped
from white-only fountains,
sat where we wanted
at diners along the route.
But we know now, or do we? –
How many of us
have seen or read the children’s book,
Ruth and the Green Book
by Calvin Alexander Ramsey?
How many of us have read
The 1619 Project?
Written by Nikole Hannah-Jones,
winner of the Pulitzer Prize
and a #1 New York Times bestseller.
What are we afraid of?
We may not be Bible readers
but we’ve all heard John 8: 31 and 32.
“The truth will set you free.”
Now is the time the truth be told.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Bjorn is hosting from Stockholm, Sweden and asks us to write a poem in the “collective” voice — we, our.
Given the movement so rampant in parts of the US to ban books, I thought it important to write this poem. If you’ve not read either of the books I mention, they are well worth the read.
Quoting from the Calvin Alexander Ramsey at the end of his book:
“In 1936, an African American living in New York City named Victor Green wrote a book to help black travelers. He made a list of all the hotels, restaurants, gas stations and businesses that would serve African Americans in his city. There was such a high demand for his book that he decided his next edition would include other towns in other states, as well.
The Green Book was sold for a quarter in 1940 at black-owned businesses and at Esso stations, which were among the only gas stations that sold to African Americans. Esso was owned by the Standard Oil Company, which eventually provided funding and offices for Victor Green. The Green Book quickly became very popular and helped many businessmen on the road, as well as the families who needed and wanted to travel by car.
By 1949, the price of the Green Book had grown along with its size – it cost 75 cents and was 80 pages. It covered all the United States, Bermuda, Mexico, and Canada!
In the 1950s and early 1960s, civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. brought national and international recognition to the injustices suffered by African Americans. Jim Crow’s days were numbered. On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Bill into law. Among other things, this act made it illegal for hotels, restaurants, and gas stations to discriminate against customers.
Victor Green published the final edition of the Green Book that same year – 1964.”
lillian the home poet 
Wonderful choice for your collective.
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Thank you, Melissa. I am deep into The 1619 Project – in my opinion, a must read for all.
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I see it in emails from the New York Times. I wish I had more time to read.😞
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I think there those who still prefer to keep those collective as they were, or even worse ignore that such a division ever existed… there is comfort of belonging when all seems like looking yourself in a mirror.
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Thank you, Bjorn. I am so upset by the book banning and this new terminology of “woke” culture. I do believe that sometimes people just want to cocoon and keep the status quo….when we delve into history, we find many times that it informs our present. Diversity allows us to see ourselves better….that’s the benefit of inclusion.
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What a timely message Lillian. I cannot imagine banning books which does not fit one’s perspective of what the world is. Thanks for the recommendations.
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Thank you, Grace. The one is a Young Adult book and well worth checking out at a library. The 1619 Project is a book that belongs on everyone’s shelf, in my opinion.
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You’re a natural at collective writing, Lill, and thanks for the background information – your history is different from mine and I only know about it from films and television.
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I hope you can find Ruth and the Green Book to read….it is a Young Adult book. Very short but oh so informative and the illustrations are wonderful. The 1619 Project is a wake-up in American history book!
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This is stunning work done, Lillian! I am so incredibly touched by your poem especially these lines; “What are we afraid of? We may not be Bible readers but we’ve all heard John 8: 31 and 32. “The truth will set you free.” Now is the time the truth be told.” Yes! 💖💖
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Glad you enjoyed, Sanaa.
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Good information and a good poem, Lillian. I honestly had never heard of The Green Book until the 2018 movie, “Green Book.” HBO’s series’, “Lovecraft Country” has The Green Book as a central plot device (along with author, Lovecraft, who was a well-known racist and believer in other unwholesome things.) You’re right, as children, we are oblivious, but we must “put away childish things” including ignorance and refusal to see as adults.
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“put away childish things” — how very well said. I think of it as taking off the blinders that were given to us as children…kind of like the prize horse being led around the track with blinders on so it cannot see what is around it. Not saying my parents did that deliberately or disparagingly….but anyway you look at it, that’s how I was raised. It’s eye opening to grow as an adult if we open ourselves to the world at large.
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That quotation is from I Corinthians 13, about love. I just don’t see how groups that profess to have the love of Christ while sitting in a pew can walk out and force someone who doesn’t look like them to be subjected to the barbarity and cruelty of institutionalized racism.
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Chickens coming home to roost. We all have them.
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Yes indeed.
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Racism, classism, colorism, caste systems in the East and West! I’m reminded of Rodney King’s plea in 1992: “Can’t we all just get along?”
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Yes…I remember that comment. Sadly, I also remember “I can’t breathe” ….I think awareness is key and book banning does not help that in any way.
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Sadly, it won’t. And all the books in the world can’t change the human heart. 🥲
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We all tend to live in our own bubbles. I am with you about the attacks on books and the teaching of history.
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I’m reminded of the drawing where you create one circle, then put another one almost on top of it, and then another and another and then you take crayons and color in all the points of intersections….those are the real rainbow.
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🌈 🏳️🌈
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Your words resonate with me, Lillian. Let’s try to make it so.
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Thank you, Colleen! And amen to that!
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A wonderful use of the prompt, Lillian. You are right we grew up with little knowledge of what was going on in our own country. I did not know there were colored and white water fountains until I was in college!
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And I think we are better for the knowing now….I just can’t understand how places can ban books like this.
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Sad!
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It seems some never move forward. You have described my childhood, too.
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I think many of us grew up like this…..and I do think the preponderance of books now available from Black authors, LGBQT authors etc are wonderful. Not only so people can finally see themselves in literature but also so that people like you and I can become more aware. For the life of me, I cannot understand how this book can be banned.
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thank you for your subject choice. I have not heard of this green book over here in England. i have learnt something today about american history.
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It is an amazing book for young adults….one that adults can learn from as well.
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it is now on my reading list
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Banning books does not change reality it just tries to hide it. Sadly, injustice thrives throughout the world.
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Sadly, yes. But I do think reading books opens our eyes and our hearts.
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I agree, and we need a wide variety of books if we are to expand our thinking and our hearts
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I never heard of The Green Book till now, Lillian!
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This book about it is quite good….a book for Young Adults but one that adults can learn from as well. Others have pointed out to me that there was a movie made some years back based on the Green Book. I’ll have to look it up.
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Thanks for the info 🙂
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I too heard of The Green Book form the Lovecraft series as well as many other upsetting truths that were in that drama and I think your poem is an excellent picture of the naivete of youth in a world mishapen and meets the challenge wonderfully…
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Thank you so very much!
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One of your poems I will remember for some time to come!! The 1619 Project: so glad I read it. And, yes I am in your age range born three months before Pearl Harbor and the launch of WWII. My experiences quite similar.
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This poem so resonates with me right now, as I try to fathom the awful underbelly of my country. What are we afraid of indeed. I have never heard of the Green Book and yeah the things we don’t know when we are cocooned from what is going on.
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The ache of this, yes, have we really understood? Here a national referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament was lost to the no-voters, a sad loss in this day and age, so here – no – we haven’t learned.
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I’ve never even heard of these books! I’m definitely going to go read them now. Thank you! ❤️
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Racist sentiment is too often passed down from generation to generation, regardless of skin color. It may be further cemented by a misguided yet strong sense of entitlement, perhaps also acquired from one’s childhood environment.
Rearing one’s very impressionable young children in such an environment of baseless contempt and overt bigotry amounts to a formidable form of child abuse. It fails to prepare children for the practical reality of an increasingly diverse and populous society and workplace. It also makes it so much less likely those children will be emotionally content or (preferably) harmonious with their multicultural and multi-ethnic/-racial surroundings.
Children reared into their adolescence and, eventually, young adulthood this way can often be angry yet not fully realize at precisely what. Then they may feel left with little choice but to move to another part of the land, where their own ethnicity/race predominates, preferably overwhelmingly so.
Parents should do their kids a big favor by NOT passing down onto them such destructive sentiments and perceptions, as such rearing can make life so much harder for one’s own children.
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