The I recall seeing these two white officers. They said something to daddy like,

you lost boy and my brother he almost lost it because he was like that way

man just called dad or boy and so we had some other respect for our dad and

daddy didn't allow nobody to disrespect him to it was almost like traumatizing to us and daddy was looking at the ground because we was looking right at him through the car one and, I'm not lost. I'm here to pick up a package. And the other

one said, you ain't here to steal it nigger, you ain't stole this good looking car. What

you do for a living? You work for some rich white folk they loan you this car?

I can hear all that in my mind.

Mother kept putting her finger up to her lips to indicate to us that we weren't to make a sound, not to make a sound. That was Hezekiah Jackson, now in his early 60s a local activist and minister in Birmingham, Alabama.

I met Hezekikaya and his longtime friends, Paulette Roby and Daniel Ransom in a community

center in the Historic Black Business District along 4 Fourth Avenue in Birmingham.

He recalled traveling north with his family during some of the most dangerous times for

black people around the country to go to visit family and friends for vacations,

marriages, births, reunions, funerals, or simply to connect.

The roadways of the USA have long been a symbol of openness and freedom, one of the

expressions of the American dream. For African Americans who wanted to participate in this dream, their travels required caution, preparedness, and planning.

Welcome to Driving the Green Book from Macmillan Podcast.

I'm Alvin Hall, broadcaster and author. Last summer I drove

from Detroit to New Orleans with producer and activist Janay Woods Weber. Together we stopped at some of the locations listed in the Negro Motorist Green Book,

the Historic Travel Guide Black Americans Used During the height of segregation.

Along the way, we interviewed the people who used and relied on the guide.

Listen to their stories and unpacked the many meanings of the publication and how its history resonates with the fight for racial equality today.

On one level, this guide, commonly called the Green Book, told black people where to find

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