Unpacking ‘The Suitcase’
by Leslie Lytle, Messenger Staff Writer
Sixty-five years ago, Ely Green showed up on the doorstep of Sewanee historiographer Arthur Ben Chitty with a suitcase containing 1,200 handwritten pages. Born to a 14-year-old black woman and white prelaw University student from a prominent Sewanee family, Green had heard Chitty was looking for stories about Sewanee. What was in that suitcase is the subject of a new podcast that began as a glimmer in the mind of April Alvarez, School of Letters Associate Director, and coalesced into a pearl with the help of Southern Studies and digital humanities archivist Hannah Huber and Sam Worley, journalist and editor. Worley said of the podcast title, “The Suitcase,” “The literal suitcase is the box Ely Green brings up to the top of the mountain in 1964 that contains his life story. Another theme is how much moving around Ely Green did, often forced by circumstances. He was chased off the mountain with nothing but a suitcase, went to Texas, went to France, went to California. He was constantly in motion, in many cases in reaction to external forces. ‘Never a moment’s rest’ is a prevailing feeling because he’s always running afoul of white supremacists, rural racists on the mountain and police in California. And, then, ‘The Suitcase’ because this is such a big story to unpack.”
“The manuscript itself has a life beyond Ely,” Worley stressed. After many rejections, in 1966 Chitty found a small Episcopalian press to publish the first segment about Green’s Sewanee years. “The publishing market then was crowded with work by black writers,” Huber said, commenting on the difficulty Chitty had finding a publisher. Chitty changed some names, notably that of Green’s father’s family, according to Huber. Other segments were omitted, including some powerful reflections on race. A student of Huber’s discovered the omissions in a class project dedicated to producing a literal transcription of the handwritten document. Whether the omissions were Chitty’s choice or the publishers is unknown, Huber said. In 1970, the University of Massachusetts Press published the full manuscript, “Ely: Too Black, Too White,” with the name changes intact, but more faithful to the original manuscript. Green suffered a stroke, had no part in editing the 1966 edition, and died before the 1970s edition was released.
“The Suitcase papers were written over a period of several months. If Green used diaries and journals as a reference, we don’t know,” Huber observed. During his time in Texas, Green began keeping a diary to improve his literary skills. “Green had only six months of formal education,” Huber said. The diaries, subpoenaed by the courts in a land dispute case, were never returned. By Green’s account, other journals were burned by a lover jealous of his relationship with his daughter.
In fact, Green had two daughters, although he never acknowledges this in his manuscript. Green’s granddaughter, Patricia Ravarra makes an appearance in Episode One. “Pat spoke with us on Zoom,” Alvarez said. “She’s an artist living in Hawaii now. She was a joy to talk with.” Ravarra was unaware her grandfather wrote a book until, by pure coincidence, she saw a copy of “Ely: Too Black, Too White.” The researchers learned from Ravarra that during his Sewanee years, Green fathered two daughters by twin sisters, one Ravarra’s mother who would later follow him to California. “He was a bit of a cad,” Ravarra mused.
The suitcase Green showed up with contained as many questions as answers. In 2020, during what Alvarez calls “the summer of racial reckoning,” Alvarez took a leadership class that focused on “finding your purpose.” “For me, that was telling stories,” Alvarez said. She found herself rereading the 50th anniversary edition of “Ely: Too Black, Too White,” with a forward written by Ravarra, and the lightbulb came on, “We should make a podcast” — we being herself, Huber, and Worley. School of Letters student Worley had enrolled in an independent study with Huber who directed a grant funded program to transcribe the handwritten Green manuscript. The more the three researchers learned, the more they learned there was to know.
In the manuscript, Green gave his mother’s age when she gave birth to him as 17 and his birthplace as Sewanee. Chitty’s notes indicate Green confided his mother was only 14, and she was “sent away” to Winchester to give birth.
Many questions still wait for answers. Green’s mother died when Green was a young child, but where is she buried? A white family Green’s mother worked for treated them with kindness and generosity, yet Green’s father’s family rejected them both. Why? And why did Chitty change their names?
Huber describes the 1966 version as similar to a “novel” in style. Alvarez describes the 1970s version as “cinematic,” perhaps a result of his many years in California where he claimed involvement with the film industry. Elsewhere in the manuscript, Green says Eleanor Roosevelt commissioned him to integrate California airplane factories. Huber could find no mention of Green’s name in the company’s logs, but she conceded, “They did not do a good job of documenting black employees. He may have embellished the Eleanor Roosevelt thing, but I believe he was there working on integration, and it wasn’t documented well.” Records of African Americans are notoriously absent from the historical archive, Alvarez pointed out. “Archives were built for the white class and the wealthy class.”
“This is Ely Green telling his story on his terms,” Alvarez insisted. During his Texas oil field years, Green recounts lobbying for black Texas farmers who lost their property to unscrupulous dealers. Speaking of his military career, Green talks about lobbying for black soldiers to receive the same combat uniform as white soldiers rather than second-rate boots and attire. Sadly, most military records were destroyed in a 1971 fire, but the researchers found Green’s last pay stub. Among other information gleaned from the pay stub, aside from dates and amounts, was documentation of the lower wage black soldiers received.
The podcast is far more than an account of a man’s life. “It’s a story about bigger things in 20th century history which, shockingly, are not more widely known,” said Worley. He emphasizes the importance of contextualization in the podcast’s telling of the story. A shopkeeper mentioned by Green turned out to be the son of a man who attacked an abolitionist senator on the floors of Congress, nearly killing him. Another connection pointed to an Alabama man who amassed a fortune as a slave trader and made a large donation to the University, the Domain’s Armfield Bluff bearing his name.
Although only the Introduction and Episode One have been released to date, the project just received Walter E. Dakin funding to produce three more episodes, with a total of nine planned. Alvarez wants to go to Texas and search for the unreturned subpoenaed diaries. Worley wants to interview descendants of Green’s father, the Wix family. Huber’s four-year grant project transcribed the portion of the manuscript about Green’s Sewanee years, and she hopes to see that work carried on to complete transcription of all 1,200 pages.
“So many know something about this story. We’d love to hear from them,” Alvarez insisted. Stay tuned and, meanwhile, tune in to
and start unpacking “The Suitcase.” (Note: To credit everyone involved in the project here would be unwieldy. See the website to learn more.)