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#TheRootTrip: The Green Acres Motel Was the Place to Be
As in most cities during the 1950s, white flight was in full flower in Dallas as discriminatory redlining by banks and Realtors worked to create middle-class suburbs and economically deprived inner cities. According to The City in Texas: A History, builders built more than 30,000 new homes in Dallas, but fewer than 1,000 for blacks. In…
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#TheRootTrip: In Irving, Texas, There’s a Black-Owned Franchise Hotel Hidden in Plain Sight
Until the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, most hotels and motels actively discriminated against blacks. And hotel and motel ownership was a rare instance unless the building was completely built by the African-American hotel owner from the ground up (more on that later). The idea that blacks would own a corporate hotel franchise…
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#TheRootTrip: An Abandoned Grocery Now Stands Where a Tourist Home Once Stood in El Paso, Texas
Just a 10-minute jog to the Mexican border sits what was listed in the 1957 Negro Travelers’ Green Book as the A. Winston Tourist Home at 3205 Alameda Ave., El Paso, Texas, which was owned by Anderson and Gertrude Winston. The Winstons lived in El Paso for most of their lives, with Anderson being trained as…
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#TheRootTrip: A Food (and Family) Connection in Phoenix
I asked folks, “Which black businesses should I check out in Phoenix?” and universally people said, “Lo-Lo’s Chicken and Waffles.” I agreed. But what they didn’t know is that the owner of Lo-Lo’s is my cousin Larry White. Here’s the quick-and-dirty black-family story of how we’re cousins: Larry’s mother, Elizabeth White, is my Aunt Bethy,…
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#TheRootTrip: A Ghost of the Green Book in Phoenix
The dilapidated neighborhood sits in the dark shadow of downtown Phoenix, an American shantytown that time forgot. It’s a block with boarded-up, lean-to homes with glass windows that have been replaced by Home Depot plastic sheeting. Lingering are beaten-up F-150 trucks with giant American flags as their only point of pride, and desperate shirtless men…
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#TheRootTrip: The 1st Green Book Stop Tells a Tale of 2 Louises
On the outskirts of Phoenix, on a nondescript street of a forgettable block, sits an extraordinary relic of black motoring past, and my first Green Book stop. It’s the former home of Louis Jordan, or, as it’s listed in the 1957 Negro Travelers’ Green Book, the Louis Jordan Tourist Home at 2118 Violet Drive. Jordan—one…
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#TheRootTrip: The Blackest Voyage Begins at L.A.’s Only Black-Owned Gas Station
Dawn hadn’t broken at 5 a.m. PDT when I jumped into the Mustang and headed east. #TheRootTrip is officially underway, and the first destination was Hooper’s Shell at 11913 Compton Ave., Los Angeles. Hooper’s is the only black-owned gas station in Los Angeles, so of course it made sense to fill up the Mustang for…
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Drive Black, Buy Black: The Root Goes on the Blackest Road Trip Ever With Author Lawrence Ross
Meet Lawrence! What’s up, everyone! My name is Lawrence Ross, and if there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I love black people. Yeah, I know people like to say that, but I truly do. I’m fascinated by who we are, where we’ve been and where we’re going. And over the past…
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What Will 2017 Bring for Black People? We Have 5 Guesses
So The Root asked me, “Hey, L, do your best and think about what’s gonna happen in 2017.” And I was like, “Bet!” As I’ve said before, I may not be Negrodamus, but I’m damn sure Negrodamus’ play cousin, so I’m pretty sure that these are not the only things that we’ll see in 2017.…
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Black Federal Workers in ‘Wait and See’ Mode Over Looming Trump Presidency
Black federal workers in Washington, D.C., are used to working under Democratic administrations and Republican administrations, all while acknowledging that even if a president’s policies differ from their own, they have a duty to their agencies to keep the government humming along. But what if the new president is thought to be a racist, who…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
