Esso Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Every once in a while, I think this blog is useful.

I received an email this month reminding me – and it had slipped my mind – that I had granted permission for the inclusion of my ESSO post to a book. The link was included along with a paragraph from the text in Racial Profiling and Social Justice in the Marketplace. The subtitle is An Inside Look at What You Should Know But Probably Do Not Know about Shopping and Racial Profiling.

I had written: “Esso had quite a positive image, at least with many people of my father’s generation. For there was a time in the United States when many African American travelers were uncertain where ‘they could comfortably eat, sleep, buy gas, find a tailor or beauty parlor…or go out at night… without [experiencing] humiliation or violence where discrimination continued to hold strong.'”

You can read what was included on the Teachers Pay Teachers site here; it involves free registration. A lesson is arranged, not just from my piece but links to other sites, with the students required to answer why Esso was so progressive in an era of Jim Crow, and other questions.

It is only one of several lessons available in the book, which is available for $30 at the Teachers Pay Teachers site here. (I should note that I was not compensated for this plug.)

The blog

Also, check out the Racial Profiling and Social Justice blog. “Mission: Provide insights to students; useful information that may be valuable in their lives. For students, independent learners, parents, and youth educators with an interest in supplemental lessons for ethnic studies and social justice topics.

“As a former plaintiff in a six-figure profiling case, Dee Adams writes about often overlooked issues regarding racial profiling in the marketplace, race, pop culture, entrepreneurs, and social justice.”

Lamphered LLC by Amazon scam

I’ve received over 40 comments to my post entitled Lamphered LLC by Amazon scam. Some people wanted verification that the emails THEY received subsequent to my post were as spammy as they suspected. Others were initially terrified they’d been hacked.

People thanked me and promised to contact Amazon. Many included the versions they received, which differed slightly but were essentially the same premise.

When I was growing up, as often as not, we got our gas from the Esso station. Esso (“S-O”) “is derived from the initials of the pre-1911 Standard Oil.” I didn’t remember this, but I read that it became the focus of so “much litigation and regulatory restriction in the United States [that in] 1972, it was largely replaced in the U.S. by the Exxon brand… while Esso remained widely used elsewhere.” Ironic, since the Exxon brand name has been forever tainted by the Exxon Valdez oil spill, not to mention purposefully manufacturing uncertainty on climate change.

Whereas Esso had quite a positive image, at least with many people of my father’s generation. For there was a time in the United States when many African-American travelers were uncertain where “they could comfortably eat, sleep, buy gas, find a tailor or beauty parlor…or go out at night…without [experiencing] humiliation or violence where discrimination continued to hold strong. These were facts of life not only in the Jim Crow South but in all parts of the country, where black travelers never knew where they would be welcome.”

In 1936, a “Harlem postal employee and civic leader named Victor H. Green” [no relation] developed “The Negro Motorist Green Book: An International Travel Guide …abbreviated, simply, as the ‘Green Book.’ Those who needed to know about it knew about it. To much of the rest of America, it was invisible, and by 1964 [when the Civil Rights Act was passed], when the last edition was published, it slipped through the cracks into history…

“The 15,000 copies Green eventually printed each year were sold as a marketing tool not just to black-owned businesses but to the white marketplace, implying that it made good economic sense to take advantage of the growing affluence and mobility of African Americans. Esso stations, unusual in franchising to African Americans, were a popular place to pick one up.”

So I have a soft spot in my heart for Esso; not so much for its successor, ExxonMobil.

Classic commercials, likely from the 1950s:
Esso extra commercial
Esso Happy Motoring commercial ….Aye Right!! – targeting the UK

ABC Wednesday – Round 11