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On a recent wintry morning, the multimedia artist Derrick Adams <https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/10/arts/design/derrick-adams-live-and-in-color.html> was sitting in his cozy basement studio in Brooklyn talking about distant cities and faraway times. “It’s like reading a fairy tale book. I see the names of beauty schools and men’s clubs and taverns, and I think, ‘What does that place look like?’” Mr. Adams was referring to the establishments listed in the “The Negro Motorist Green Book,” <https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-green-book#/?tab=about> a series of AAA-like guides for black travelers published from 1936 through 1966, and the inspiration for “Derrick Adams: Sanctuary,” an immersive installation opening at the Museum of Arts and Design <http://madmuseum.org/exhibition/derrick-adams-sanctuary> (known as MAD) on Jan. 25. Widely used at a time when African-Americans were navigating physical and social mobility through the swamp of Jim Crow laws and attitudes in the mid-20th century, the Green Books, as they came to be known, listed businesses from gas, food and lodging to nightclubs and haberdasheries that welcomed African-Americans when many did not. While they reflect a disturbing reality of American history, the books also offered the hope of partaking in the American dream. “They enabled African-Americans to travel like Americans and to feel American,” the artist said. If for Lawrence liberation meant freedom from Southern oppression, for Green, the creator of the Green Books, it meant the end of his business. “There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published,’’ he wrote in the 1949 edition. “That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication for then we can go wherever we please, and without embarrassment.” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/arts/design/how-an-artist-learned-about-freedom-from-the-negro-motorist-green-book.html _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
