Two shows about US black history deal with issues especially resonant today
Driving the Green Book | Macmillan Podcasts
The Forum: The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre | World Service/ BBC Sounds
A couple of lessons in US black history this week: both a little academic but all the better for it. First, Driving the Green Book. Presented in beautifully modulated tones by broadcaster-educator Alvin Hall, this 10-part podcast series explores 20th-century African American lives. The Negro Motorist Green Book first came out in 1936, and the last edition was in 1962. It was a travel guide for black people, written by a Harlem couple, Alma and Victor Hugo Green (you may remember it from the Oscar-winning film Green Book). Based on a similar guide that was available for Jewish people, the Greens decided to list local businesses owned by black people, and other places where African Americans were welcome. Over the years, the guide was extended out of New York to the rest of the US. It was especially useful for black people who lived in the south and wanted to visit relatives who had migrated north to escape the Jim Crow laws.
