Three of us, one black, one white, and one biracial, attended the November 21, 2018 released film, Green Book. This film is a comedy/drama based on a true story in which a working-class Italian-American bouncer, Tony Lip, becomes the driver of an African-American classical pianist, Dr. Don Shirley, on a tour of venues through the 1960s American South. It is hailed as a story about friendship. The closing credits show photos of the actual two main characters and tell us that their friendship continued for almost fifty years, until their deaths in 2013.
The film was engaging, laugh-out-loud humorous, and portrayed incidents that were common in the Jim Crow South of the sixties. We recognized the creative license going on—a black guy has to be taught how to eat fried chicken by a white guy? Come on! A good editor would have caught and cut that nonsense. That’s my opinion. The black member of our group loved the KFC scene and thought it was hilarious. We all three agreed with critics who called it the “feel-good movie” of the season. The audience in the Colorado Springs Tinseltown theater that we attended gave it a round of applause at the end.
However, not everyone agrees. Dr. Don Shirley’s last surviving brother, 86 year-old Maurice Shirley said, “It was full of lies.” Niece Carol Shirley Kimble felt it was insulting to her uncle.
Brooke Obie, managing editor of the website Shadow and Act, goes further, headlining her review of the movie, to which she gave a zero star rating: “Green Book is a Poorly Titled White Savior Film.” She gives numerous examples from the film to back up that statement.
I will let viewers decide for themselves on the racial implications and quality of the movie. However, I would like to clear up one inaccuracy. The movie depicted the lodgings listed in The Green Book as uncomfortable, run-down, and possibly dangerous. This was not true of the listings in The Green Book.
The Negro Motorist Green Book (its full title) was the idea of Victor Green, a black New York City postal employee in 1936. It listed hotels, boarding houses, restaurants, barbershops and various other services that would save black travelers from “as many difficulties and embarrassments as possible.” It became well-known, eventually being sponsored by Esso Standard Oil Corporation, and was published until 1964 when the Civil Rights Act ended racial discrimination in public places.
Throughout the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, the Green Book was a godsend to black travelers. Family travel was becoming a popular idea, but the freedom of the open road was not so friendly when you were turned away from finding a place to sleep for the night.
Martin Luther King, Jr. poignantly described this in his “Letter From Birmingham City Jail.” It was one of many explanations he said he had to stammer through to answer his six-year-old daughter when she asked, “Daddy, why are white people so mean?” He worried when he saw “the depressing clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky.” How do you explain to her, he wondered, “when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you?”
Five years ago on Thanksgiving weekend, 2013, fire gutted a 125-year-old house at 418 East Cucharras Street in Colorado Springs. The house had been vacant since the last family owner died in 1996.
This home was a link to the city’s black history. George and Mayme Roberts were listed in The Green Book and many weary travelers found shelter in its well-kept tourist rooms and welcoming atmosphere. Chauffeurs, maids and entertainers, also stayed there when their work brought them to Colorado Springs and there was no place that would give them a temporary room.
Dottie Spann, whose grandfather, Jesse Bass, trained horses for the city’s founder, General Palmer, told columnist Bill Vogrin that her parents stayed at the Roberts Tourist Home, after celebrating their wedding because no hotels would take them.
George and Mayme Roberts and their four children have passed away, but the memory of what they did to uphold the welfare and dignity of many people, will live on. The Green Book and its creator, the little-known postal worker, Victor Green, connected people and their destinations for decades, and made “traveling while black” a positive experience. They are unsung heroes who deserve to be recognized.
Back to the movie and the harsher criticisms: In my opinion, it’s okay that some scenes were hyperbolized or invented. We know how to suspend belief for the sake of a story. Our species has been doing that since time began, when the storyteller concluded the tale, and we left the campfire to retire in our caves. Personally, we’ve been doing it since we were four years old and watched a flattened Wile E. Coyote get up, regain his shape and resume chasing the Road Runner. Beep Beep!
Nevertheless, in today’s story telling, when history is depicted we always have the responsibility to question authenticity and dig deeper when it’s required.
To me, it’s okay that the movie was more about Tony than Dr. Shirley. Tony had more to learn. His character grew and changed. Dr. Shirley knew his gift and he knew his call. I thought the movie portrayed his quiet courage very well.
Yes, the film has some flaws. But in the first few days after its release it seems to have ignited dialogue on race issues and what really happened in our country’s recent past. And that’s a good thing.
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Lucy Bell’s 35-year teaching career included over twenty years as a writing consultant. Her latest book, Coming Up, A Boy’s Adventures in 1940s Colorado Springs, combines narrative non-fiction with the history of the black community of Colorado Springs. It features rare historical photographs and the watercolor illustrations of Linda Martin. Release date: October 14, 2018. Her children’s novel, Molly and the Cat Who Stole Her Tongue, published in 2016, is available at Poor Richard’s Bookstore, Colorado Springs and Amazon.
