Tulsans will have the chance to travel back in time through a virtual history project showcasing what life was like on road trips for African-Americans in the 1950s.
The Green Book Road Trip, hosted at Greenwood Rising Oct. 19, will place people in front of a screen and take them from Los Angeles to Greenwood along Route 66.
The Green Book was a travel guide used by Black people beginning in the late 1930s that listed safe places for them to eat, sleep and patronize. Attendees at the mid-October event will be given a copy of the book.
“It really just started out kind of as a visual lecture, but it’s now gotten to be a little bit more of a dramatic piece as well as a participation,” Mike McUsic, who started the project five years ago, told The Eagle. “I feel like requiring the crowd to participate makes it more of an immersive experience.”
McUsic is a digital humanities scholar and creator of Green Book Travelers, a crowdsourced website dedicated to collecting the stories from people who relied on the guide as they traveled through a segregated country.
During the Jim Crow era, Black travelers faced the threat of beatings, lynchings and other forms of violence. They were routinely denied access to gas stations, hotels and other basic services, which made the Green Book a necessary travel tool.
It was created by Victor Hugo Green, a postal worker and travel writer from Harlem.
Throughout the experience, participants will encounter forms of racial profiling, violence and sundown towns. But it won’t all be doom and gloom, McUsic said. It will also highlight some of the historical sites like the Dunbar Hotel in Los Angeles, which was the epicenter for the city’s Black community at the time.
“I want people to come away feeling like they’re empowered to do something about the racism that exists today,” McUsic said.
Featuring an optional museum tour, catered meal and theatrical performance, The Green Book Road Trip will take place from 5:30 to7 p.m.Tickets, priced between $20 and $25, are available here. Guests are encouraged to dress in period-style clothing from the 1950s.
Ismael Lele is a Report for America corps member and writes about business in Tulsa for The Oklahoma Eagle. Your donation to match our Report for America grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting this link.
