Active Hate, Mixed Media (2017 SPLC Hate Groups Map & 1940 Green Book), 36” x 36”, 2019

Active Hate is a weaving composed of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s 2017 Active Hate Group Map combined with a facsimile 1940 Green Book Travel Guide – a guide created by Victor H. Green to provide a means for African-American travelers to find respite in the segregated South. That each text was deemed necessary in its respective era is absurd and only highlights the deep roots of hatred in this country.

The juxtaposition of the contemporary SPLC map with the 1940 text demonstrates that, rather than moving away from our Nation’s history of racial division, tension, anger, and oppression, we live in a world where these same traits are prevalent, alive, and equally powerful. What’s more, hate is rooted not by geographic boundaries, but in the very fiber of our nation and our collective psyche. The white nationalism of the past seeks not to create a place within our nation, but rather to take over our nation—our hearts and minds. By weaving these two texts together, I am asking the viewer to question notions of past and present, of space and time—not to remember the boundaries and battle cries of Dixie, but to think instead of how hatred manifests itself in all of our lives.

Many thanks to the SPLC for their assistance with this project.

Resources

For a current Active Hate map, check out the SPLC’s updated Active Hate Map
For more information and resources, see the Southern Poverty Law Center
History Channel’s The Green Book: The Black Travelers’ Guide to Jim Crow America
Flip through a copy of the Green Book from the NYPL Digital Collection, The Library of Congress,
or download a copy from the Texas Historical Commission

For much of the 20th century, African Americans were routinely refused service at many businesses. Victor Green, a New York City postal worker, created a travel guide called the "The Negro Motorist Green Book" that listed establishments that would not turn them away, reports Mark Strassmann.