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I'm hoping there's someone out there that can help me understand what it was REALLY like being a young black adult in the early 1960s (62-64, say). I know there was so much going on racially, but what was it like, say, getting on a Greyhound bus, in the prime of your life - a young black man, to go out west, would you have to sit in the back? Would you feel like you had to? What would happen if you didn't? Would you even get on a bus? Along the way, would you be able to go into restaurants, restrooms, etc. Lastly, do you know of any good books about this (fiction or non-fiction) besides Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison? Thanks.
There is most certainly far better places to get this answer as opposed to some forum where you are as likely to get flippant answers as opposed to anything else.
I'm not black , so I will speak only to your request for books. Try reading biographies and memoirs of black musicians. Or watch the movie Ray, about Ray Charles.
I would start with, Tally's Corner, by Elliot Liebow and The Other America by Michael Harrington. Both are sociological studies written in the early 60’s. I think they were both considered groundbreaking for that time.
Anything by James Baldwin
"Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It" by JoAn Gibson Robinson
"A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story" by Elaine Brown
Alice Walker essays (many don't know she participated in the civil rights movement, especially in Mississippi where she lived in the 1960s with her white/Jewish husband. I cannot remember the name of the essays but she is a prolific writer and many of her earlier works either speak of or are set in the 1960s along with her short stories).
"An Autobiography" by Angela Davis (many do not know she has a similar background to Condi Rice, they are from the same neighborhood in Birmingham)
"Bloods: Black Veterans of the Vietnam War" by Wallace Terry - this book is a collection of narratives of black soldiers in Vietname from 1963-1973. Many of the stories start off with what drove them to volunteer or what was going on in their lives prior to the war. I have it at home and it is a powerful book and one I made my son read so he would have a good account of what it is like to be in an armed conflict.
There are many others. I read a memoir years ago and I can't remember the author's name but it was about a young man who lived in NYC and him growing up in Harlem specifically. It detailed his family structure and his run ins with the juvenile justice system, his early adulthood and ended with the dramatic effects that the heroine epidemic had on Harlem - an epidemic that many people have forgotten about due to the horrors of the subsequent crack epidemic in black neighborhoods.
Another interesting topic to research would be the Nation of Islam. Harrier mentioned Malcolm X but the organization as a whole grew the most during the 1960s due to both Malcolm's charisma and the message of self defense and self determination that they espoused as a group.
Writings my MLK would be interesting too. Ella Baker, his secretary has a book as well. Many people put King into an "I have a Dream" box and he was much more than that speech. He wrote a few books himself.
On the subject of him and Malcolm and NOI, you can look up the COINTELPRO and FBI files for them and the original Black Panther Party.
But on the whole I will add that I am black and I have many older relatives who lived through the 1960s. I do feel that it is better to interview your subject when doing research. Visit some churches to see about getting a couple interviewees. (Not meaning to be disrespectful but....) Older people love to talk about the good old days and practically all older people think the good old days were the times when they were teens to twenty something year olds so it would be great to speak to some people about that.
I want to add that even though I suggested some rather militant sorts of works, most black people did not have that experience. All black people, like whites are unique and most of us live boring lives both now and in the past. FWIW, my grandmother was a young mother in the 1960s (my mom was born in 61). She had an associate's degree - first person in our family to attend college and she was a "Personnel Manager" at a major auto parts manufacturer in my area so she was someone that people looked up to in a way. She did not want to be secretary, a simple housewife, or a factory worker, so her goals and her time period coincided at the perfect point. She and my granpa divorced before the end of the 1960s. Divorce got more popular in the 60s and beyond due to the women's liberation movement and grandma was always considered a "career woman." She went on vacations to Vegas and the Carribbean and to Canada to gamble and to Niagara Falls and all the places that most middle income white people vacationed to as well. My dad's family were similar and none of them really experienced any racial strife though they did support Dr. King's struggle and understood those who were fighting in other areas with the Black Panther Party in the Black Power Movement. My grandma told me she was in a cloud for weeks after Dr. King's death and there was a BPP shoot out in my hometown between them and the police that subsequently caused the powers that be to demolish the traditional "black" part of town and that area has yet to recover to this day.
The 1960s was a unique period in our country's history. Good luck with your research.
I'm hoping there's someone out there that can help me understand what it was REALLY like being a young black adult in the early 1960s (62-64, say). I know there was so much going on racially, but what was it like, say, getting on a Greyhound bus, in the prime of your life - a young black man, to go out west, would you have to sit in the back? Would you feel like you had to? What would happen if you didn't? Would you even get on a bus? Along the way, would you be able to go into restaurants, restrooms, etc. Lastly, do you know of any good books about this (fiction or non-fiction) besides Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison? Thanks.
I also wanted to address some of your specific questions. I work in the public housing sector, primarily senior public housing and the majority of our clients/residents are black and I talk to them a lot.
I live in Atlanta and a large percentage of our residents are from Atlanta so I will provide some second hand knowledge:
Getting on a greyhound bus - many of our residents do say they rode Greyhound or other interstate bus companies. They mostly went for college from Atlanta to Nashville or Tuskeegee, AL or to FL. They remember the "colored" and "whites" signs and speak to me ALL.THE.TIME! of how Maynard Jackson here in Atlanta in the 1970s finally removed those signs from the city government buildings in Atlanta. My grandmother in law is in her 80s and she told me she hated the signs. Other black people just accepted that that was how life was. Grandma said it made her hate white people and FWIW many of our elderly black residents share the same sort of sentiments as my Grandma does (she is from AR and lived mostly in the Little Rock and Memphis, TN area her entire life).
Going West - my husband's grandfather (grandmother in laws husband) left her and went out west with a white woman lol! It is still a scandal in their family. He ended up being killed by the white woman's family. I didn't believe it but I looked it up and it was true. But he got out there via bus okay until the family caught up with him lol.
Here in Atlanta the elderly said they did have to sit in the back of the bus. They didn't mind the segregation most of the time as they felt that too many white people were unpredictable and "evil" and they didn't want to be around them all that often not even on the bus. If they didn't move, they would be arrested.
Here in Atlanta there was a vibrant black commercial district in all the black neighborhoods. Black people went to those establishments for restaurants and shopping. Many today of the older generation feel that integration ruined black businesses because it allowed so many blacks to go out and buy in other areas. The place I mentioned in my hometown (I am from Ohio) that was bulldozed after the BPP shoot out was the commercial district. All the businesses were bulldozed and the neighborhood has never recovered.
I'm hoping there's someone out there that can help me understand what it was REALLY like being a young black adult in the early 1960s (62-64, say). I know there was so much going on racially, but what was it like, say, getting on a Greyhound bus, in the prime of your life - a young black man, to go out west, would you have to sit in the back? Would you feel like you had to? What would happen if you didn't? Would you even get on a bus? Along the way, would you be able to go into restaurants, restrooms, etc. Lastly, do you know of any good books about this (fiction or non-fiction) besides Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison? Thanks.
To get inside the mind of an angry militant black man, Soul on Ice, by Eldridge Cleaver. Very uncomfortable reading, highly influential at the time.
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