LEST TRUMP FORGETS (AS IF HE EVER KNEW….) PART 1

SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL WRITES IN THE GUARDIAN, September 4, 2025, “Trump Wants to Rewrite American History. Maybe He Should Learn It First.” 

Blumenthal observes, “Of all the presidents, Donald Trump—the man who would remake the Smithsonian and alter its presentation of ‘how bad slavery was,’ as he put it—is surely the most ignorant of American history itself.”

Here, in Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow we’ll examine how truly ignorant this white supremacist is, even about relatively recent history.

Recently, The New York Times offered “18 Great Road Trip Books That Aren’t ‘On the Road,’ ” by Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs, and Jennifer Szalai. One of its books is Alvin Hall’s Driving the Green Book: A Road Trip Through The Living History of Black Resistance. 

Driving the Green Book: A Road Trip Through The Living History of Black Resistance, by Alvin Hall, HarperOne, 2023. 

Dwight Garner’s Brief Summary: “From 1936 to 1967, millions of Black motorists relied on The Negro Motorist Green Book, a guide to where its readers could safely eat and sleep while on the road. This was a road trip guide of a different sort, and back issues of the Green Book, remnants of unfortunate national history, are unaccountably moving. In this book, Alvin Hall explores the history of the Green Books and goes on road trips himself, visiting places, like Montgomery’s Ben Moore Hotel, where Black Americans have long felt welcome. The result feels like a homecoming.”

The IndieBound website cites other details: “Most Americans only know of the guide from the 2018 Green Book movie or the 2020 Lovecraft Country TV show. Alvin Hall set out to revisit the world of the Green Book to instruct us all on the real history of the guide that saved many lives. With his friend Janée Woods Weber, he drove from New York to Detroit to New Orleans, visiting motels, restaurants, shops, and stores where Black Americans once found a friendly welcome.”

IndieBound continues, “They explored historical and cultural landmarks, from the theatres and clubs where stars like Duke Ellington and Lena Horne performed to the Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Along the way, they gathered memories from some of the last living witnesses for whom the Green Book meant survival—remarkable people who not only endured but rose above the hate, building vibrant Black communities against incredible odds.”

Given that all this reading would likely overtax the Queens Felon, in Part 2 we’ll turn to a 2018 movie version. And even search out a 1998 essay by a fellow named Peter Egan. ds 

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025