#jameswloewen

Today’s #HistoryBooksatmyJob post was inspired by a conversation with a customer about The Negro Motorist Green Book aka the Green Book and another conversation with a coworker who has done three cross country drives in the past.

For those who don’t know what the Green Book was, it was created by African American mailman Victor Hugo Green in 1936. Initially the Green Book highlighted places in New York City where Blacks could safely get a hotel room, shop and dine without being refused service. Later editions of the book expanded to the rest of the United States, Canada, parts of the Caribbean and parts of Mexico.

You would think that the American idea of hopping into your car and going wherever the road led you applied to all. It did not. The book highlighted such perils that African Americans would face while on the road such as “Sundown Towns” and white only establishments, especially in the Jim Crow South. The book did an amazing job in trying to steer blacks to safe business that would gladly have their business. The book ceased publication in 1966. Here is the selection of books for this week:

- Driving While Black by Gretchen Sorin

- Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America by Candacy Taylor @candacytaylor

- Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance by Mia Bay @mia__bay

- Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James W. Loewen @JamesWLoewen

I’m looking forward to cracking into these books soon. Any thoughts? Yea? Nay?

#TheNegroMotoristGreenBook #VictorHugoGreen #DrivingWhileBlack #GretchenSorin #OvergroundRailroad #CandacyTaylor #TravelingBlack #MiaBay #SundownTowns #JamesWLoewen #AfricanAmericanHistory #AfricanAmericanStudies #BlackHistory #BlackStudies #BlackHistoryMatters #BlackLivesMatter #AmericanHistory #USHistory #Books #Libros #Livres #Bookstagram #BooksAtMyJob #History #Historia #Histoire #HistorySisco

(at Barnes & Noble)

https://justice.tougaloo.edu

So I'm going to try this new thing where every once in a while I will pick out a book that I think is a good representation of history or brings up interesting new points about how society sees what happened and post about it. I think reading is one of the best way to learn new things, and who doesn't want to read about history that a lot of people don't?

The first book that I'm going to talk about is an absolute gem called Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen.

It is a truly fascinating read. Each chapter of the book focuses on a different topic or turning point in history and how the school system has erred in teaching the topic. The chapters range from being about Christopher Columbus and the "discovery" of the Americas to the failure of the War in Vietnam.

One thing that Loewen does especially well with this book, I think, is connecting his specific stories back to the American historical narrative as a whole and justifying why he considers it to be so vital for students to know what happened in the past and its implications for their futures. It's not hard to see that Lies My Teacher Told Me was one of my main inspirations for this blog, because I really admire Loewen's passion and drive to educate about history.

So, yes: if you are at all interested in the format of this blog/project I would highly recommend looking into Lies My Teacher Told Me. It is very eye-opening.  

Here's Loewen's website: