The "Negroes Are America's Last Pioneers" Story

The Reverend Stanley Imboden

It was an ordinary day.  Wishing Reverend Stanley Imboden a "Happy Birthday" on Facebook.  After writing my birthday greeting I decided to take a look at a few of Stan's posts on his Facebook page.  One of the first posts I observed featured the green cover of "THE NEGRO MOTORIST GREEN-BOOK".  A publication I had never heard of before, but one that I will now never forget after reading his comment as well as a few online articles about the publication which defined "Negro" travel throughout the United States during its history.  As a young child my parents took my brother and I on weekend trips as well as a week-long vacation during the summer months.  Not once did I ever notice, or even think of, Negroes being anywhere near the locations we were visiting.  We took trips to the Chesapeake Bay for fun in the sun; swimming and playing in the sand.  As I grew older I entered elementary school in an up-scale white school district.  It was at this time that I began to notice and associate with Negros.  At age 12 I wanted to to play organized baseball so bad that I talked my father into allowing me to join a team.  He found one in the newspaper that practiced in the south end of the city, which was where most of the Negroes lived.  After my first practice I was part of the team.  There were 15 boys on the team; five of us white and the rest Negroes.  

Cover of the Negro travel guide.

I loved it!  We were coached by two men, one Negro, Mr. Hawkins, and one Caucasian, Mr. Keifer.  My dad volunteered to drive through the south end of the city to pick up boys for every practice and game.  To me, we were all part of a team.  Skin color didn't mean a thing to me.  Today, as I viewed "The Green Book" I learned of an entirely new world that existed in the late 1940s and early 1950s that I never knew existed before.  As I read online I found a book written in 1965 by John A. Williams titled "This Is My Country Too" that said he didn't believe white travelers had any idea of how much nerve and courage it required for a Negro to drive coast to coast in America.  Items needed for travel where nerve, courage, a great deal of luck supplemented by a rifle and shotgun, a road atlas and Travelguide which would list places in America where Negroes could stay without being embarrassed, insulted, harassed or worse.  He noted that black drivers needed to be particularly cautious in Southern states where they were advised to wear a chauffeur's cap or have one visible on the front seat and pretend they were driving a car for a white person. Along the way you would have to endure a stream of "insults of clerks, bellboys, attendants, cops and strangers in passing cars."  "The Green Book" helped the Negro traveler by listing accommodations for black travelers, places that would allow Negroes to eat as well as use the restroom and even places to refuel.  Not once did my dad or mom ever tell me the hardships that those boys on my team faced when they tried to go on vacation as we did after the baseball season ended.  As I grew I went to junior high and high school and never once did I have a Negro in any of my classes.  As a student at Millersville State Teacher's College in Millersville, Pennsylvania I did see a few Negroes on campus, but didn't have any in my classes.  After graduating from college and having more time, I began to coach baseball and went back to the same neighborhood where I played to form a team of young boys.  We, too, were very good.  I totally enjoyed the experience while driving the same streets as my dad did years earlier, picking up the boys to take them to practice and games.  Once again we were a multi-cultural team.  While teaching in the same high school from where I graduated, I began to have Negroes in classes.   I had Negroes as well as Latinos and many other nationalities on my Yearbook Staff.  All of my adult life I have realized the animosity suffered by most minority groups and have tried my best to alleviate that animosity in my classes and extracurricular activities.  But, I am sorry to say, I did not realize the total abuse that Negroes faced just to take a simple vacation with their family in the late 1800s and most of the 1900s.  As I read the post by Rev. Imboden today he told of a good friend of his whom I had the honor to meet years ago.  Rev. Imboden wrote:  "Jim Crow" Southern States and many Northern "Sundown Law" Communities harshly discriminated against African Americans, especially as they sought places to stay during travel. The Green Book previously posted on FB by another person listed the familiar name of our late friend, true gentlemen and Lancaster civic leader, the honorable Nelson Polite who for many years welcomed weary travelers of all colors to his Lancaster home. Nelson is in heaven now and there's no Green Book needed there. For years Nelson and I served on the founding Board of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship Fund in Lancaster city. He is dearly remembered.  That book cover will forever remind me of the hardships faced by the Negroes as they attempted to take their young families on summer vacations such as my mom and dad did for years when I was a young child.  I'm positive it still happens, but hopefully not to the extent that is used to happen.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.