The Negro Motorists Green Book was published from 1936 to 1967.

I was born close to the midpoint of the period of its publication, so I was almost a teenager

when the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, legally ending segregation in public places

and banning employment discrimination.

I know firsthand that this did not change people's everyday behavior in communities across America.

African-Americans who had lived through and survived segregation in Jim Crow knew this.

Talked about how deeply hell many beliefs were, and knew how individuals and communities

were likely to hold on to practices that were familiar and comfortable.

The emotional legacy of this restrictive 10th time in America is not something that can easily disappear.

Coping and survival techniques had been developed and shared among black people over decades.

This collective knowledge could not, would not be forgotten with the signing of the Civil Rights Act.

It would continue to be passed on by the previous generation to me and my contemporaries

and my generation would share them with the next through intimate conversations, advice, and patterns of behavior.

This is Driving the Green Book from McMillan Podcasts, and I'm your host, Alvin Hall.

In this episode, we'll explore how this history still sits in the lives of people we met

as my producer, Gene Wood's Webber and I, drove the Green Book from Detroit to New Orleans.

African-American Studies Professor, Confensé Chiquet at Wayne State University in Detroit,

shared with Gene and me stories he had heard about traveling in the South.

His words also got me to reflect on my childhood trips from South of Tallahassee, Florida.

I heard people talk about when they traveled South, they had to oftentimes pack their own lunches

because they couldn't stop to eat. Once they got so far in the South, of course I heard stories

about the classical, and I don't know if you heard this shoe box in Huntsdale,

...