After downloading the Green Book, I looked up the VA references. All were for cities. However, the Rt. 1 corridor north of Richmond was dotted with small motels between the cities. I remember stories that some of the motels catered to African-Americans. The "codes" by which one could translate were that the African-American motels had initials in the name as in "R&D Motel" and that adverts on the restaurant signs listed fried chicken. Not wishing to stir up a discussion about what some might perceive as the racist stereotypes associated with certain food groups, and oddly enough, still seeing vestiges in TV commercials now, I am mentioning it to determine whether anyone else has more concrete evidence of those two stories as a means by which folks navigated the perilous waters of Jim Crow.

OK, I'm feeling feisty so what the heck is it about some food groups that seems to have been negatively associated with specific ethnic groups. Sausages in the north of all stripes have ethnic connotations: Polish, German, Italian, etc. which seem to be positive, although I am aware of the difficulties and put-down language associated with them as individual groups until assimilation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The southern biggie is watermelon. I love watermelon and am entirely caucasian. There's a photo of me as a 3 year old eating a watermelon slice that was nearly as wide as I was tall and my stomach gave evidence that that slice was not the first. Grocery stores obviously still sell watermelons and from my observations, white customers devour them. I bought a wonderful photograph from the time when photo edges were scalloped that showed two ladies beside a car with a picnic basket and tablecloth spread on the ground. They were dressed in immaculate early 20th century white high collar dresses. Both were African-American and each was eating a large slice of watermelon in the accepted fashion. All my narrative does is establish that watermelon is an universal food, regardless of ethnic origin. So how and why did it become a pejorative stereotype if we all eat the danged delicious stuff and white folks eat more than anyone else?

Fire away.

Lyle Browning

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