Welcome to Our Production Website!

Above: Animation Still by Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), Atlanta MFA Animation students, Ammar Nassri (Syria) and Zhou Quan (China) about traveling to New York City in the 1950’s, from “The Green Book Chronicles”, a live action documentary with animation

• Calvin Ramsey is featured in the NEW YORK TIMES Travel section, Sunday 7/19/15 edition with an online preview here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/travel/calvin-a-ramsey-on-the-days-of-the-green-book.html

Perfect timing as we resume production on the film and plan a trip to shoot additional interview footage in NYC in August of Victor Green’s relatives, the extensive collection of  Green Books at Schomburg Center, and locations of Green’s former apt. and office in Harlem. Stay tuned!

• Check out Calvin Ramsey’s profile in HUMANS OF NEW YORK: facebook.com/humansofnewyork/photos/a.102107073196735.4429.102099916530784/958248650915902/

• Calvin Ramsey’s play THE GREEN BOOK is now available in script form via this Writer’s Union link. http://www.nwuny.org/Calvin-Alexander-Ramsey.html

• Video Preview #1 is posted in the Video Tab! Check out this 10:00 compilation of sample animation and interviews as we develop our one hour film.
  

• The Washington Post interviewed Calvin for an article that ran on 8/28/13! Check it out here www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/road-guide-for-african-american-civil-rights-activists-pointed-way-to-1963-march/2013/08/27/1085a2c4-0f64-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html

• You can also hear Calvin talking about the Green Book on NPR’s “Travel with Rick Steves”, first airing on June 8, 2013, by visiting http://www.ricksteves.com/radio/program-archives.cfm

• Green Books are very rare! A handful can be found in research archives across the country, such as the following locations in Atlanta, GA: Manuscript and Rare Book Library (MARBL) at Emory University, Auburn Avenue Library of Research on African American Culture and History, and Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Woodruff Library. Do you have one? We’d love to see it!

• Did YOU or anyone you know ever use the Green Book to travel or have a listing in it? If so, we’d love to hear your story to possibly include in this first film or in what we anticipate will be a short series about related topics. Contact us at the emails listed on the right.

To view complete Green Books online:

1949 Edition at the University of Michigan                         http://www.autolife.umd.umich.edu/Race/R_Casestudy/Negro_motorist_green_bk.htm

1956 Spring Edition at the South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia SC: http://library.sc.edu/digital/collections/greenbook.html

________________________________________________________________

ABOUT OUR FILM

THE GREEN BOOK CHRONICLES:

Connecting with Victor Green’s Travel Guides for African-Americans 1936-64

This live action documentary with animation can be described “Ken Burns + NPR StoryCorps + mixed-media animation”.  Co-produced by Calvin A. Ramsey and Becky Wible Searles (Director), the film is inspired by Ramsey’s extensive research and creative projects focusing on the 1936-64 travel guide series, “The Negro Motorist Green Book”, expanded in later years of publication to include international destinations and renamed “The Negro Travelers Green Book”. Currently in production as a one hour program, the live interviews, motion media, and animation segments in the film explore a range of personal experiences connected to this little known Civil Rights era story. Aiming for middle and high school audiences as well as adults in general, the goal is to complete the project in 2015 with the help of an upcoming crowd-funding campaign and other possible support.

Extensive preliminary work on the film has been done by several teams totaling 29 students in TV Producing, Animation, and Motion Media courses from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Atlanta campus under Animation Professor Becky Wible Searles’ direction with the help of professional crew members: Professor James Arnold (SCAD Atlanta Film and TV / TV Producing), Jimmy E. Searles (Research and Music Supervisor), Professor Sandro Imperato (SCAD Atlanta Motion Media), and Marty McPherson (Production Photographer).

Published by Harlem-based U. S. Post Office letter carrier, Victor H. Green, between 1936 and 1964 as a travel guide for African-Americans during the days of Jim Crow laws, the “Green Book” listed the addresses of tourist homes, gas stations, restaurants, beauty parlors, and other establishments that welcomed African-Americans during times when many others did not. Even outside the deep South, travel could be inconvenient, embarrassing, or even dangerous if you were not white. The books were available at ESSO gas stations and other African American-friendly businesses, even including some white-owned establishments. Interestingly there were no phone numbers listed in the book, only addresses, so patrons would simply show up and be invited in, somewhat like a 20th century Underground Railroad.

   Victor H. Green, c. 1955          1940 Green Book                 1949 Green Book

Prior to this documentary, Ramsey wrote THE GREEN BOOK, a fictional stage play that premiered to sellout audiences at Atlanta’s Theatrical Outfit (www.theatricaloutfit.org). The play was named a finalist in the 12th Annual Last Frontier Theater Conference in Valdez, Alaska, in June 2004 where it was critiqued by theatrical luminaries such as Edward Albee and Patricia Neal. Further readings were staged at La MaMa E.T.C. in New York, directed by George Ferencz and Baltimore Hebrew University, co-sponsored by the Baltimore Chapter of the NAACP, the Baltimore Jewish Council and the Jewish Museum of Maryland. Civil rights leader, Julian Bond, was included in a cameo role as Victor Green when the play moved on to a reading at the restored Lincoln Theater in Washington, DC.

Translating the material for a younger audience, Ramsey wrote his award-winning children’s book, “Ruth and the Green Book”, with illustrations by Floyd Cooper. In 2011, Jon Ludwig, Artistic Director of Atlanta’s Center for Puppetry Arts, collaborated with Calvin to turn the children’s book into a theatrical production at CPA that combined live actors, puppets, and animation, including original music by S. Renee Clark and a video-taped afterword by Georgia’s Congressman John Lewis (www.puppet.org/perform/ruthgreenbook.shtml).

Right: Calvin Alexander Ramsey (photo by Calvin A. Ramsey)

Starting in summer 2012, Ramsey, Wible Searles, and a core group of professionals have collaborated pro bono with Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Atlanta student crews to interview real people telling their stories about using the “Green Book” and traveling throughout both the United States and abroad before the Civil Rights Act became law in 1964. A variety of styles of animation, motion graphics, photographs, and historic memorabilia are being integrated into the live interview footage and many of those elements have been in progress over the past year. Interviews were shot in SCAD Atlanta’s green screen TV studio to facilitate adding background images in post production.

Above: Freddye and Jake Henderson outside of Henderson Travel, Atlanta, the first accredited African-American owned travel agency in the United States, opened in 1955 (photo courtesy of the Freddye Henderson Archives, Auburn Avenue Research Library, Atlanta)

Above: World War II veteran, Wilbert Verrett, and his wife, Dr. Joyce Verrett talk about using the Green Book to take their honeymoon in Pensacola, FL in 1964 (photo by Jimmy E. Searles)

Above: Ambassador Theo Britton shows his recent Congressional Gold Medal (highest civilian award in the United States) for diplomatic service, including being a Marine in World War II and the first American Ambassador to Barbados and Grenada (photo by Marty McPherson)

Above: SCAD TV Producing student, David Howell, helps Shirley Henderson Coleman get ready for her interview about Henderson Travel Agency, owned by her parents (photo by Jimmy E. Searles)

Above: SCAD TV Producing student, Bernard Jackson, reviews and logs some of the over seven hours of interview footage to prepare for editing. On the left screen is Gary Kirksey speaking about his grandmother, Mary Jackson’s house in Alliance, Ohio that was listed as a tourist home in the Green Book. On the right screen, Curtis Graves, first African American Representative in the Texas State House since the late 1800’s, shares stories about using the Green Book from his father’s ESSO gas station to travel to Miami (photo by Marty McPherson)

 

Above: Phillis Holliday talks about traveling internationally through her job at United Airlines in the 1960’s (photo by Jimmy E. Searles)

Above: Calvin Ramsey interviews Wellington Cox Howard II about his grandmother, Ethel Cox, who owned a home in Indianola, MS that was listed in the Green Book for tourists (photo by Marty McPherson)

Above: SCAD Atlanta TV Producing students taking a break in the SCAD TV production studio while assisting with interview shoots, audio recording, research, and logging over seven hours of footage for “The Green Book Chronicles”, supervised by Prof. James Arnold. From left to right: Morgan Dixon, Kelly Rose Magnusson, Lance White, Layla Harleston, David Howell, Bernard Jackson, and Ben Tincher (not pictured: Alejandra Morales) (photo by Becky Wible Searles)

Above: Completed animation still by SCAD Atlanta MFA students, Jeff MacDonald and Daniele Paulet, combining 2D rotoscoped animation with vintage postcards. (For more about this process, see the “Behind the Scenes: Animation” tab)

Above: SCAD Atlanta MFA Animation students holding vintage postcards they used to create travel animation segments for “The Green Book Chronicles” as part of Prof. Becky Wible Searles’ “Drawing in Motion” course; From left to right back row: Zhou Quan (China), Chivaun Fitzpatrick, Jenna Zona, Ammar Nassri (Syria), Jeff MacDonald, Danielle Paulet, and Colin Wheeler; From left to right, front row: Princy Peuse (India), Calvin Ramsey, and Seungbin Ahn (South Korea) (photo by Becky Wible Searles)

Above: SCAD Atlanta students take a break from editing, color correcting, and compositing backgrounds for the interview segments in Motion Media Professor Alessandro Imperato’s “Cinematography and Editing” class; From left to right: Injae Lee (Korea), Britt Lyle II, Professor Alessandro Imperato, Reggie Harrison, and Evleen Huang (China) (not pictured: Sarah Shipman) (photo by Marty McPherson)

Above left: Production Photographer, Marty McPherson chats after the shoot with Ambassador Theo Britton (photo by Jimmy E. Searles)

Above right: Research and Music Supervisor, Jimmy E. Searles works with Writer/Director/Co-Producer,  Becky Wible Searles, to plan a segment edit (photo by Marty McPherson)

Above left: Sketch of Becky Wible Searles by SCAD Atlanta MFA Animation student, Tres Swygert / Above right: Head of SCAD Atlanta Film and TV / TV Producing, Professor James Arnold adjusts the video control panel for the interview shoots (photo by Marty McPherson)

 Stay tuned for more pictures and updates! Your comments are welcome.