Humble shoeboxes allowed African Americans to dine with dignity.
"Pre-made meals not only reduced costs but served as your breakfast, if your route was void of sites listed in The Negro Motorist Green Book, a paper directory created by Victor Greene to guide black drivers and voyagers. “I remember my first travel experience to visit my grandmother. I was around four years old. We’d catch a train from Seattle, Washington, to Pine Bluff, Arkansas. We brought food on the train,” says Patricia Patton, a retired hospitality professional and entrepreneur. “In the 1960s, my family brought a car, and we’d drive from the Pacific Northwest to San Diego to visit family. The cooler would be packed with enough to eat for three days.”
Many families started each trip by reminding kids of the rules—daylight bathroom pit stops only, and lunch served in the car. This extra caution was vital. “I was born in the late 1940s. I was not supposed to stare or look at people while traveling,” says Patton. “Often, my mother’s hand would tuck my forehead down, and no playfulness—we remained still to avoid any confrontation with white people.”
In Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America, author Candacy A. Taylor makes it clear that women were the powerhouses that made getting to and fro easier. A mother’s to-do list then was more than untangling iPad chargers and buying granola bars; it was icing down a cooler and twisting handkerchiefs containing pinches of salt and pepper. The matriarch’s job included repositioning the Stanley-type thermos, filled with water, from shifting on the floorboard.
When it was time to eat, Taylor notes, a “shoebox lunch” was set up, and most often, it was cold fried chicken pieces, thickly sliced country ham sandwiches, buttery pound cake chunks, and winter oranges or backyard peaches. The condiment-slathered sandwiches and an unbreakable platter for the perfectly piped deviled eggs would likely sit high up in the cooler to avoid spoilage."
