History

The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's The Negro Motorist Green Book page on 3 August 2017, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Negro Motorist Green Book (at times styled The Negro Motorist Green-Book or titled The Negro Travelers' Green Book) was an annual guidebook for African-American roadtrippers, commonly referred to simply as the Green Book. It was originated and published by New York City mailman Victor Hugo Green from 1936 to 1966, during the era of Jim Crow laws, when open and often legally prescribed discrimination against non-whites was widespread. Although pervasive racial discrimination and poverty limited black car ownership, the emerging African-American middle class bought automobiles as soon as they could, but faced a variety of dangers and inconveniences along the road, from refusal of food and lodging to arbitrary arrest. In response, Green wrote his guide to services and places relatively friendly to African-Americans, eventually expanding its coverage from the New York area to much of North America, as well as founding a travel agency.

Many Black Americans took to driving, in part to avoid segregation on public transportation. As the writer George Schuyler put it in 1930, "all Negroes who can do so purchase an automobile as soon as possible in order to be free of discomfort, discrimination, segregation and insult." Black Americans employed as athletes, entertainers, and salesmen also traveled frequently for work purposes.

African-American travelers faced hardships such as white-owned businesses refusing to serve them or repair their vehicles, being refused accommodation or food by white-owned hotels, and threats of physical violence and forcible expulsion from whites-only "sundown towns". Green founded and published the Green Book to avoid such problems, compiling resources "to give the Negro traveler information that will keep him from running into difficulties, embarrassments and to make his trip more enjoyable."

From a New York-focused first edition published in 1936, Green expanded the work to cover much of North America, including most of the United States and parts of Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Bermuda. The Green Book became "the bible of black travel during Jim Crow", enabling black travelers to find lodgings, businesses, and gas stations that would serve them along the road. It was little known outside the African-American community. Shortly after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed the types of racial discrimination that had made the Green Book necessary, publication ceased and it fell into obscurity. There has been a revived interest in it in the early 21st century in connection with studies of black travel during the Jim Crow era.

Multimedia

Date	Media or Collection Name & Details	Files
21 February 2019	Green Book Mapped a Safe Route Through Era of Discrimination Mike Osborne, VOA News	Article Page - 51.7MB - 2:55

Documents

Date	Document Name & Details	Documents
1958 edition	The Negro Travelers' Green Book	Book ( PDF) 101MB · 80 pages Publisher: Victor H. Green & Company Topic: The Negro Travelers' Green Book

Title & Subtitle	Details
The Negro Travelers' Green Book	Year & Type: 1951 Nonfiction Publisher: Victor H. Green & Company Topic: The Negro Travelers' Green Book
The Negro Travelers' Green Book	Year & Type: 1952 Nonfiction Publisher: Victor H. Green & Company Topic: The Negro Travelers' Green Book
The Negro Travelers' Green Book	Year & Type: 1953 Nonfiction Publisher: Victor H. Green & Company Topic: The Negro Travelers' Green Book
The Negro Travelers' Green Book	Year & Type: 1954 Nonfiction Publisher: Victor H. Green & Company Topic: The Negro Travelers' Green Book
The Negro Travelers' Green Book	Year & Type: 1955 Nonfiction Publisher: Victor H. Green & Company Topic: The Negro Travelers' Green Book
The Negro Travelers' Green Book	Year & Type: 1956 Nonfiction Publisher: Victor H. Green & Company Topic: The Negro Travelers' Green Book
The Negro Travelers' Green Book	Year & Type: 1957 Nonfiction Publisher: Victor H. Green & Company Topic: The Negro Travelers' Green Book
The Negro Travelers' Green Book	Year & Type: 1958 Nonfiction Publisher: Victor H. Green & Company Content: 80 pages Topic: The Negro Travelers' Green Book Availability: Complete Book Online ( PDF)
The Negro Travelers' Green Book	Year & Type: 1959 Nonfiction Publisher: Victor H. Green & Company Topic: The Negro Travelers' Green Book
The Negro Travelers' Green Book	Year & Type: 1960 Nonfiction Publisher: Victor H. Green & Company Topic: The Negro Travelers' Green Book
The Negro Travelers' Green Book	Year & Type: 1961 Nonfiction Publisher: Victor H. Green & Company Topic: The Negro Travelers' Green Book
The Negro Travelers' Green Book	Year & Type: 1962 Nonfiction Publisher: Victor H. Green & Company Topic: The Negro Travelers' Green Book
The Negro Travelers' Green Book	Year & Type: 1963 Nonfiction Publisher: Victor H. Green & Company Topic: The Negro Travelers' Green Book
The Negro Travelers' Green Book	Year & Type: 1964 Nonfiction Publisher: Victor H. Green & Company Topic: The Negro Travelers' Green Book
The Negro Travelers' Green Book	Year & Type: 1965 Nonfiction Publisher: Victor H. Green & Company Topic: The Negro Travelers' Green Book
The Negro Travelers' Green Book	Year & Type: 1966 Nonfiction Publisher: Victor H. Green & Company Topic: The Negro Travelers' Green Book
Ruth and the Green Book	Year & Type: 2010 Childrens' Author: Calvin Alexander Ramsey with Gwen Strauss Illustrations: Floyd Cooper Publisher: Carolrhoda Books Topics: The Negro Motorist Green Book The Negro Travelers' Green Book

Article Index

Date	Article	Author/Source
18 September 2016	Black-owned Travel Sites Today Reflect Black Guidebook of Past	Marissa Melton, VOA News
21 February 2019	Green Book Mapped Safe Route Through Era of Discrimination	Mike Osborne, VOA News