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most of us
have good hearts and most people want
everybody
to just have a fair and equal life in
this country
but there was always kind of a
disconnect and there still is
in terms of understanding how our
history is so close to us
it's so important that we honor this
history but also
learn from it my name is candace taylor
i'm a cultural documentarian working on
a project based on the green book
which was a travel guide that was
published for black people during the
jim crow era
it serviced not only black migrants who
were leaving the south during the second
wave of the great migration but also
black entrepreneurs celebrities and all
kinds of folks who just wanted to take
vacation like
every other american by 1962
two million people were using the green
book it was the bible of black travel
and that largely speaks to just how
critical it was
for safety for instance the sun downtown
was a place that was all white on
purpose
and if you were black you were not
allowed after 6 pm
when i first started this project i kept
reading about
this chauffeur's hat that black people
would pretend to be chauffeur
to help them get out of situations with
law enforcement and i asked my stepdad
one day i said is this true and he said
yeah he said it happened to him when he
was a child riding in the back seat of
his parents car
then they got pulled over by sheriff and
his father turned and looked at him he
said don't say a word
and the sheriff said who are these
people whose car is this where are you
going
ron's father said this is my employer's
car
he turned to his wife and said she's the
maid
and this is her son and i'm driving them
home
and the sheriff you know kind of blocked
and said well where's your hat
and he said it's hanging in the back
officer so there were props there were
ruses
tools that you had to use to stay safe
and stay alive and the green book was
just simply another one of those tools
i'm creating an interactive map that
shows not only green book sites but
sundown towns
socioeconomic statistics like lead
poisoning or educational disparities or
income disparities or private prisons
the map is such a critical tool in
telling the story
because there's so much data there were
about 10 000
businesses listed in the green book and
i've scouted over four thousand
sites i've estimated that about eighty
percent of the buildings
have been just erased from the landscape
and less than three percent are still
operating but la has
either the largest of the second largest
number that are still standing
we're sitting in the dunbar and it was
built by a man who was a black
dentist he was sick of being thrown out
of hotels so he thought well just build
my own doctor
how are you welcome to the dunbar thank
you that is it
the dunbar was called the waldorf
astoria of
black america the best of the best
this is a piece of history you can see
this quote here it was a hotel
a jewel done with loving hands funny
that a hotel so impressed
but it was so unexpected so startling so
beautiful
w.e.b du bois that's right incredible it
is incredible
before you know billy holliday of course
great singer duke ellington
this was the hub of l.a black culture
back in the 30s and 40s this was the
place to be
it's really critical to understand what
these places look like today
and how racism has shaped how we move
especially as black people through this
country
where we stay and how we live so this is
the raw data of my working map
let's look at where we are now in los
angeles and see what happens when we
zoom in
the dunbar for example when the
interactive map is completed you'll see
images from the dunbar historical and
current
oh my gosh so all of this is done bar
yeah this is incredible that we have
these artifacts because there's so few
green book sites that are even still
here
right the fact that it's not all lost
god
when i get to a green book site first of
all i want to see if it's still there
i'll try and find the owner and then i
go and i do interviews
i've interviewed a man who worked in a
green book site in
montgomery alabama called the ben moore
hotel
and he was martin luther king's barber
and
at that time the strategy for the
montgomery bus boycott was happening
and so all those conversations with
thoroughgood marshall and all of these
people who were on the front lines
of this history were sitting in that
barber shop so it's a real honor not
just that the buildings are here but
to try and capture the stories behind
them
so the screen bookmark that i'm
developing is including both historical
and current data regarding race and
mobility and
access to equality the swastikas are
kkk and other hate groups from the 2015
census so that brings it into today
being able to visualize data really
helps tell the story of not just the
green book but of our current
situation with race and class in america
today
digital data can just change our lives
i'm working on
an augmented reality platform and a
mobile app to actually scan so you can
see what was there what it looked like
when it was in the green book
kind of collapsing the present and the
past into a story
because i think that's been important to
me that people
don't look at the green book and say oh
my gosh that's something that happened
in the past and thank god we don't need
that anymore
it's important that we learn the real
history of what the green book was
how it really transformed access and
mobility for
a race of people it gave them the
strength to persevere
in spite of all the challenges that were
ahead of them
this guide made it possible for them to
move forward
anyway it was extremely powerful
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you