Readers React: A passenger-seat view of discrimination in the 1950s
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To the editor: The excellent article on the “Negro Motorist Green Book” — a guide for black drivers to, among other things, which establishments would serve them — brought back a consciousness-raising memory. (“This guidebook helped African Americans find a hotel along segregation-era Route 66,” May 17)
In 1956 I hitched a ride from the African American cook at my fraternity at Gettysburg College to spend Thanksgiving with relatives in McKeesport, Penn. The cook and his wife were going on to nearby Pittsburgh. It was a long enough journey to warrant some stops along the way.
At each he stop he consulted in a matter-of-fact way a well-worn guide to find out which places would welcome black people. It was my first up-close experience with racial discrimination, and it’s something you never forget.
Kevin Thomas, Santa Monica
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