1930’s Flyers/Advertisements

Ch. 1, page 7

Ticonderoga Pencil

Ch. 2, page 12

“I saw Ticonderoga printed on the yellow wood”.

Bud’s Suitcase

Chap. 2, page 15

“I was too busy keeping my eye on my suitcase wondering if they’d stolen anything from it. And thinking about getting even”.

John DillingerAn American bank robber in the Midwest during the early 1930s

Ch. 2, p. 17

“I put my head down and started shooting apologies out like John Dillinger shoots out bullets.”

Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox

Ch. 2, page 17

“… I was being just like Brer Rabbit in one of the books Momma used to read to me at night…”

Louisville Slugger

Ch. 3, page 26

“I stood up on the woodpile and held the rake like it was a Louisville Slugger”.

Paul Bunyan

Ch. 3, page 27

“… I closed my eyes and swung it like I was Paul Bunyan chopping down a tree with one blow”.

Paul Robeson A famous African-American athlete, singer, and actor of the 1930’s

Ch. 3, p. 29 “ I put my hand out like Paul Robeson running down the football field”.

Double-Barrel Shotgun

Chapters 3 and 4

I wondered how hard I’d have to pull the trigger on the double-barrel shotgun for it to go off.”

Pretty Boy FloydA bank robber and killer from St. Louis, Missouri, who had a very successful criminal career.

Ch. 5, page 37

“I had to be real careful, even if it was the middle of the night, even if I was crouching down, sneaking along the street like Pretty Boy Floyd”.

J. Edgar HooverThe director of the FBI from 1924-1972, died of Anthrax poisoning

Ch. 4, page 35

“I was on the lam, I was just like Public Enemy Number One. If J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI saw me now I’d be in some real serious hot water!”

Texas Cowboy Hat

Ch. 5, page 39

“The hat was almost as big as Momma and you could see it was fake because as tall as it was no real cowboy could’ve wore it without getting it knocked off his head every time he rode under a tree or some telegraph wires”.

The Mission

Chapter 5, 6

“I’d have to wake up real early if I wanted to get to the mission in time for breakfast…”

Thomas CrapperA plumber who increased the popularity of the toilet

Ch. 6, page 48 “Boy had to go use the crapper, told him not to waste time…”

Dorothy DandridgeAn American actress and popular singer, and was the first African-American to be nominated for an

Academy Award for Best Actress.

Chapter 11, page 112

“…I’ll be sound asleep, deep in the middle of a Ruth Dandridge dream…”

Herbert Hoover

Hooverville

George Washington CarverAn American scientist, botanist, educator and inventor

Chapter 11, page 119

“Boy looks like one of George Washington Carver’s experiments sprouted legs and run off”.

Machine Gun KellyA notorious American criminal during the prohibition era

Chapter 11, page 133It seemed like it would be real easy for Machine Gun Kelly to point at some poor slob and say, “That’s the guy what ratted me out, Lefty. Finish him off!”

Al CaponeAn American gangster who led a crime syndicate dedicated to smuggling,

bootlegging of liquor, and other illegal activities during the prohibition era of the 1920’s

Chapter 12, page 137Uh-oh. Maybe this was loot from a bank that him and Al Capone had knocked over!

Labor Organizers

• Chapter 12, page 139“What’s a labor organizer, sir?” “In Flint there are people who are trying to get unions in the automobile factories. A union is when a group of workers get together and try to make things better for themselves and their children.”

In 1935, in the midst of the Great Depression, seventeen farm labor

organizers appeared in a Sacramento courtroom accused of Criminal

Syndicalism – the attempt to overthrow the government by violent means. 

Red Menace! The Sacramento Conspiracy Trial of 1935 depicts the

proceedings through Sacramento Bee images, original police arrest

photographs, courtroom documents, and Communist literature. The trial

captivated Americans from Sacramento to Washington D.C. as it exposed

a perceived threat to the American way of life. 

During the Great Depression, black intellectuals, labor organizers, and artists formed the National

Negro Congress (NNC) to demand a “second emancipation” in America. Over the next decade, the

NNC and its offshoot, the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC), sought to coordinate and catalyze

local antiracist activism into a national movement to undermine America’s Jim Crow system of racial

and economic exploitation.

Pullman Porters and Redcaps

• Chapter 12, page 139We’ve been negotiating to get a union for the Pullman porters for years now and

nowhere in Grand Rapids will print these flyers for us.

The Pullman porters laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement by forming the first black labor union, the Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car Porters, under the leadership of A. Philip Randolph in the 1920s. The union gave leadership and money to the civil rights movement.

For more than a century, the largely African American Pullman porters were a part of American train travel, until competition from planes and automobiles led to the decline of sleeper cars.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Chapter 17, page 198I was pretending it was that underwater boat in the book Momma read to me, Twenty Thousand Leaks Under the Sea.

Niagara Falls

Chapter 17

The Last Supper

Chapter 12

Baby Face Nelson

Chapter 10, page 107Wow! If I kept things like this up I would knock Baby Face Nelson off the FBI’

Ku Klux Klan A secret organization in the southern U.S., active for several years after the Civil War, which aimed to suppress the newly acquired powers of blacks and to oppose carpetbaggers from the North, and which was

responsible for any lawless and violent proceedings (against blacks, Catholics, Jews, and the foreign-born).

Chapter 12, page 143Son, there just aren’t too many places a young Negro boy should be traveling by himself, especially not clear across Michigan, there’re folks in this state that make your average Ku Kluxer look like John Brown. You know who John Brown is?

John BrownAn American abolitionist, and folk hero who advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a

means to end all slavery. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas.

Chapter 12, page 143Son, there just aren’t too many places a young Negro boy should be traveling by himself, especially not clear across Michigan, there’re folks in this state that make your average Ku Kluxer look like John Brown. You know who John Brown is?

Grand Central Station

Chapter 15, page 175“Now Bud,” Miss Thomas said, “this is what we called Grand Calloway Station.” It reminded him of that train station in New York City, Grand Central Station.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Chapter 12, page 132Sucks, this doggone FBI was just as good as the movies said it was, they were just like those Royal Canadian Mountain Police, they always got their man!

Map of Flint, Michigan and Grand Rapids, Michigan

Depression Era Gangsters Video

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaQO872pIo0&NR=1

-Baby Face Nelson-Pretty Boy Floyd-Machine Gun Kelly• http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=

Tgpdb11Ex1I&feature=endscreen-Bonnie and Clyde

The Entire Book of BNB Online!

• http://playpen.meraka.csir.co.za/~acdc/education/Dr_Anvind_Gupa/Learners_Library_7_March_2007/Resources/books/budnotbuddy.pdf