Name: The guide book that helped black Americans travel during segregation
Uploaded: 2018-03-19T01:54:28.000Z
Duration: 4 min 17 s
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Imagine you're on a road trip with your family.

Adverbs of manner

Segregation is law in the South and basically practiced everywhere else in America.

You're traveling down the famed Route 66 and you've just reached

Albuquerque, New Mexico for the first time.

There's not another town for miles and you want to pull over and sleep for the night.

There are over a hundred motels to choose from, but less than eight will

Picking the wrong one could lead to a humiliating encounter or worse,

a violent one, but there was actually a way to know where you'd be welcome.

Americans fell in love with the idea of the road trip in the mid-20th century.

A growing middle class meant more people had cars and jobs with paid vacation time.

And a newly built interstate highway system meant the country was

accessible to a big part of the population for the first time.

The open road indicated freedom and traveling by car reflected Americans' image of

themselves: self-sufficient, curious, and spontaneous.

spend time together and see the expansive country they called home, to

experience America's cultural and natural diversity.

'60s, the highway became the most common way for American families to travel.

Motels and roadside attractions sprang up along the highway to accommodate

travelers needing a place to sleep or eat at any point on their journey.

But that freedom didn't extend to all Americans.

away from the roadside hotels, gas stations, and restaurants that had taken

Some places were so hostile that it was unsafe to

Sundown towns forcibly expelled African Americans at night,

Black families had to take prepared food, in case they

wouldn't find a restaurant that would serve them, extra gallons of gasoline in

case filling stations wouldn't sell to them, and even empty coffee tins in case

They carried blankets and pillows knowing

that finding a safe place to sleep could mean camping by the roadside or driving

long hours into the night, even though they had money to pay for a hotel.

It was the exact opposite of the spontaneous

But thanks to a Harlem  postal-worker-turned-travel agent,

knowing where to go wasn't a total shot in the dark.

In 1936 Victor Hugo Greene collected information on hotels, restaurants, beauty salons, and

mechanic shops that would reliably serve African Americans in New York City.

He called his Travel Guide "The Negro Motorist Green-Book" and began publishing

using his network at the United States Postal Service,

which was one of the largest single employers of African Americans at

Green put together detailed information on businesses and private

homes that would welcome black travelers.

locations in all 50 States and sold ad space to businesses all over the country.

With the help of Esso, now ExxonMobil, as a progressive corporate partner and

distributor of the guides, around 15,000 copies of the Green Book started selling

Victor Greene's once-16-page booklet ballooned

to over a hundred pages and became a stable item for black families who

wanted to participate in the joy of cross-country travel.

that iconic image of the open road, of freedom and family values, would become

The Civil Rights Act ended legal segregation

in 1964 and just two years later the Green Book went out of print.

And as the road cut through the broad plains, you felt the

tremendous space all around you. A country rolling out to the horizon,

It was beautiful and you sort of sensed the real meaning behind