[music] “The Negro Motorist Green Book,” first published in 1936, was a critical guide for African-Americans traveling during the ‘40s, ‘50s and early ‘60s. [music] It was created by a Harlem postal worker, Victor Green, and his colleagues, who gathered a listing of restaurants, bars, hotels and private homes that welcomed black travelers across the country. [music] In a time where Americans started hitting the road, African-Americans faced restrictions as they traveled. Although you could purchase a car, you couldn’t get gas, stay in hotels or eat in restaurants. Travel was difficult and dangerous. [music] Ben’s Chili Bowl, at 1213 U Street, Washington, D.C., was originally a silent movie theater called the Minnehaha. It was later featured in the “Green Book” as a pool hall. Since 1958, Ben’s Chili Bowl has continued the legacy of the “Green Book,” providing a refuge for the whole community. [music] I was born in Washington, D.C., in 1939 in a segregated hospital. I lived in a segregated neighborhood and I went to a segregated school. First, I didn’t realize any difference because all the people around me looked like me. And I was comfortable with that, until I realized that I was being discriminated against. [music] We couldn’t shop downtown at the major stores. You couldn’t try on clothes. You couldn’t try on hats. Because if you tried them on, they didn’t want you to get grease on the hats. You know, we oil our hair. And our makeup is dark, and so they didn’t want us to try on clothes because you might get makeup on the clothes. I remember being about 7, maybe 10 years old in Hecht’s department store when a little girl called me a nigger and spat on me. And I couldn’t retaliate. I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t do anything. I was so angry inside, but I couldn’t do anything about it because I knew that it would be blamed on me. [interposing voices] “The ‘Green Book’ was a guide for African-Americans to travel safely, to find shelter, food and gas in a time where these basic rights were not guaranteed.” [interposing voices] “Washington, D.C., had more listings in the ‘Green Book’ than any other city in this country. The 1213 U Street was listed in the ‘Green Book,’ and that’s why we’re sitting here in Ben’s Chili Bowl at 1213 U Street today. From the very day that we opened up to the current time, it’s still a safe haven for people.” [music] “And we invited the community in, and we started with the neighborhood young men that thought this was home for them. They always sat over there in that corner. There was always eight, six, eight, 10 of them every evening, from different walks of life in the community. When someone spilled something on the floor and the staff was busy, one of them took care of it — go in the back, get the mop. If we were running out of ice, they’d say, ‘Hey, Joe, go get some ice for me’ — kind of place. That was really the beginning of the building of the relationship with this community, these young guys that found this to be home. As soon as they started to broadcast professional basketball, they put the TV up for them to keep them here so they wouldn’t have to go see that game someplace else. We didn’t have TVs in Ben’s Chili Bowl, but that was for them. And that brought in that segment of our community. And then, of course, this being the strong close-knit community that it was, when you came here for a chili dog, you ran into a friend.” [music] Particularly in the early ‘50s, when we would leave Washington, D.C., on the train, we could sit anywhere on the train, until you got to the Virginia line. And when you get to the Virginia line, you had to go to the last train on the back. And I remember being so frustrated because we could not eat on the highway if the train stopped. We couldn’t eat. We couldn’t relieve ourselves on the train. You either had to hold it or relieve yourself sitting there, and then you’re wet. When the train stopped, you would get off the train and you would relieve yourself outside, almost like you would if you were a dog. [music] And that’s the way basically I thought that white people felt about me as a black African-American — or Negro woman, or nigger woman, or whatever — that they felt like I was not human, not a human being, that I was less than a human being. I see people treat their dogs better now. Right now, they treat the dogs better than they treated us as black Americans. [interposing voices] “Well, one of the things that I remember was traveling from southwest Georgia down to Mississippi. And this was right after Miss Hamer had been beaten. I mean, they dragged her off the bus and beat her and crippled her. And one of the things that I remembered on that bus, I felt two things. First, I had to sit in the front of the bus, just like you. But second, I also was, in my head, saying, what am I going to do if these people come on the bus and try to treat me like Miss Hamer? And one of the things I was very clear about is that I was not getting off the bus and going to any of these places to try to use the bathroom. I was not going to get off the bus to try to get anything to eat. I knew enough to pack a lunch before I got on that bus. Now, it was a 10-hour ride from Albany, Ga., down to Jackson, Miss. But, I mean, it was really tough trying to not only deal with the question of where you’re going to go to the bathroom, where you’re going to go eat, but whether if you exercised your right under the law, whether somebody was going to come up there and try to assault you. That was a reality that we wanted to change. I mean, I remember I was maybe 14 years old when I started seeing the challenge, the real challenge, in Montgomery with the bus boycott, with Rosa Parks. Just in terms of local transportation and interstate transportation, we had to face people telling us, you’re not good as we are. And now because of people who got on the bus and challenged the institutions that were developed, you can dream big. You can dream bigger than we could dream. It was important. I mean, the biggest thing that we were able to do — and Frank can tell you this — the biggest thing we were able to do is we were able to say, you cannot block our dreams. Now we couldn’t say what our dreams were, but we could say, you can’t block our dreams. You can’t tell us what we can’t do. We’re going to kick down all these barriers.” [music] “Those barriers could be life threatening. Every trip through America for a black person during those times was potentially fatal. It seemed like many people were out to hurt us, or even kill us, just because we were black.” [thud] [grunt] [thud] [thud] [thud] [siren blaring] “The assumption is, at some time it stopped. And that’s not the case. It never stopped.” [shouting] “That’s a continuous thing that hasn’t changed since the beginning of the relationship that exists here between blacks and whites in the United States. It’s like a river that keeps flowing, and we don’t really see all of it. But at the end of the day, it’s something that started back in slavery and continues today. Young black people don’t have the ‘Green Book’ in front of them, but they have it in their head. We are no longer looking at ‘No Negroes Allowed’ and stuff like that, but you’re looking at the same thing, which says, these are barriers here. And then people feel that if you cross these barriers, they have a right to kill you.” [shouting] [music] “Tamir was such a energetic kid. At 12 years old, he would actually get up in my arms, as big as he was, and let me hold him and kiss him and squeeze all on him.” [music] “So that day when you got the knock on the door, what happened?” “So, I was actually coming from the store and putting groceries up, and a knock came at the door. Two little boys told me that my son was shot by the police. And I was like in denial. I’m like, ‘No, you’re not talking about my kids. My kids is at the rec playing.’ And my oldest son was laying on the couch. He wasn’t feeling well. But he ran out right past me. I guess he heard it in the little boy’s voice. And he ran out before me, and I’m still trying to get my coat and my shoes on, talking about, ‘No, my kids is playing.’ And surely enough, as I walk across the street around a little track where I could see the kids, my son is laying on the ground with 10 police officers surrounding him. And my daughter is screaming in the back of the police car. And they have my other son surrounded, and they put him in the back of the police car. So it was terrible. That’s how that day turned out. The police asked me — well they didn’t ask me, they told me to calm down or they were going to put me in the back of the police car. Because I was trying to get to my son. They never let me get to him. They also let me ride in the front seat as a passenger.” “Of the police car.” “Of the ambulance.” “Of the ambulance.” “So I never even got a chance to get back close to my son, to hold his hand, to kiss him and let him know that it was going to be all right. I don’t know what they were doing.” “So he was in the back of the ambulance, and you were in the front.” “Yeah, I was in the front, like a passenger.” “What kind of service were they giving Tamir at the scene?” “I don’t know because they were surrounding him.” “They were surrounding him.” “I couldn’t really see.” “What were the officers doing? They were just standing there?” “Well they were just blocking me, not letting me go towards him, and telling me to calm down. And I’m telling them, you need to let my kids out the car. They’re minors and stuff like that. And like I told you, they gave me an ultimatum to stay at the scene of the crime with the other two children or to go with Tamir. I chose to go with Tamir, and I had to leave two children at the scene of a crime.” [music] “Everybody see what happened to my son. They didn’t even want to release that tape. My attorney had to threaten them to release the tape. And after that tape was released, it just went worldwide.” “What did you see on that tape? What was your reaction to it?” “My son was scared when they rolled up. He was scared. And he shrugged his shoulders, like this. They tried to say he was reaching for his waistband. He wasn’t reaching for nothing. When you roll up fast like that, you scared him.” “Absolutely.” “And that’s what I see.” “He was just stuck. He was just like — “ “Yeah. Like, what did I do?” “Right.” “Yeah. So, yeah, I will never get that vision out my head. That’s devastating. I play it over and over again. Also, with the picture of him laying on a gurney, and they would not allow me to touch him because they said he was evidence. So I didn’t even get a chance to touch him or none of that. No kiss goodbye. No nothing. No feeling him or nothing. So they said he was evidence, so I couldn’t touch him. And I don’t really know how that works.” “What ultimately happened to Tamir’s body?” “So — I had to get Tamir — well I didn’t have to, I choose to get him cremated. I don’t really think I told anyone that. But I don’t want to leave my son in Cleveland when I leave Ohio, so I will be taking him and my mother with me and have them in urns in my house.” “So to take him everywhere that you go, every stage of the rest of your life.” “Yeah, he has to go with me. Yeah. Because he just has to go. I wasn’t finished raising him, you know? I wasn’t finished nourishing him. And America robbed me. Yep, they robbed me.” “So when people talk about the American dream, what do you call it?” “A nightmare, especially if you’re black. Yeah.” [music] Traveling while black means to me that discrimination, segregation is still alive and well. And that even though I don’t have to have the “Green Book” to guide me to a black person’s house and I can stay in any hotel I want, but just think about the people who have been killed while traveling black. A young man, who was involved in the schools in the area where he lived, killed in front of his fiancée and their child, traveling while black. Traveling while black, I’m driving down the highway and the police decide to stop me. Even though I’m an elderly black woman, I could be killed just because I’m black and don’t give them the answer that they want. Traveling while black in America is still happening. And I am really frightened for black men traveling while black. I wonder, when does it end? [music]