Hey, educators, I have a very poignant book to share today, Ruth and the Green Book by Calvin Alexander Ramsey, Gwen Strauss, and Illustrated by Floyd Cooper. It’s a beautiful story about African Americans and their struggle to travel down south. Because of Jim Crow and segregation laws. Ruth and the Green Book share those perspectives of back in the 1950s. This book talks about those trials and tribulations for students to understand. It’s about a young girl named Ruth who travels from Chicago with her parents to visit her grandmother in Alabama.
What is very interesting about this story is it talks about the actual trials and tribulations of African Americans trying to travel across the country in the early 30s, 50s, and even the 70s. From a child’s perspective, this book lays it out beautifully to show all of the roadblocks African Americans had to face to travel safely to visit family. Victor Green, who invented this guidebook, The GreenBook for Negro Motorists, was a safety book. This book was so vital for the safety of African Americans to travel and know that at any checkpoint or stop that they had to make, there was a haven for them to eat, sleep, and use the washroom without being in danger. And this book talks about that very thing. I love how Ruth’s parents put her in charge of this book when they could purchase it. This book was in such high demand in our country with African Americans that they could only buy it. This book will open your students’ eyes to understand what oppression looked like and felt. I also liked how the author talks about African American Veterans. Her father fought in World War Two, and their expectations of being respected for fighting for this country and coming back home, getting this unfair treatment with Jim Crow. So I want you, educators. To read this book, study more about Victor Green and why his purpose was to make this guidebook for other African American motorists to travel safely and be with their families. I am so excited to share that I also wrote a companion lesson plan with this book on my website Jebeh edmunds.com. This book is essential to read to your students and order my lesson plan in my Shop tab. Check it out today!
