How Did 'The Green Book' Work?

Lauren Vogelbaum here. As he was growing up in Baltimore in the nineteen fifties, the author and playwright Calvin Alexander Ramsay never really questioned why his family, like all the other black families he knew, would leave for vacation car trips at two or three in the morning, and he never thought twice about the fact that the family always slept at private homes instead of in hotels, used the side of the road as a restroom, and packed their own food with them for the length of the journey.

Only years later did Ramsey realize that his parents avoided restaurants, gas stations, and hotels in order to protect him from the racist degradations and very real dangers of traveling will black in nineteen fifties America. The nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act formally ended segregation and made it a crime to discriminate on the basis of color, But the tradition of the Great American road trip has always been very

different for families of color. Especially before the Act passed, Black motorists traveling outside of major city centers had no way of knowing if the local service station would sell them gas or if there were any restaurants serving black customers within a day's drive. In nineteen thirty six, a black mailman living in Harlem, New York, decided to do

something about it. That's when, inspired by Jewish publications that listed safe places for Jewish travelers to eat and sleep on the road, Victor Hugo Green published the first edition of the Negro Motorist Green Book, of that being the accepted nomenclature for Black Americans at the time. Inside the pages of the Green Book, as it became known, black travelers could find state by state listings of hotels and private tourist homes to spend the night, plus restaurants, barbershops,

service stations, and stores where their business was welcome. You might be familiar with the Green Book through the twenty twenty television series Lovecraft Country, or the novel it was based on of the same name, or through the film Green Book, though the film has been widely denounced for its cloying and inaccurate portrayals of real life people like

black pianist Dr Donald Waldridge Shirley. The aforementioned author, Calvin Alexander Ramsey himself wrote a popular children's book in ten called Ruth and the Green Book, as well as a play called The Green Book. When we spoke with Ramsey, he explained that Green relied on a network of fellow black mailmen across the country to compile listings of businesses and private residents and mail the addresses back to Green's wife in Harlem, who would add them to the always

expanding publication. A new edition of The Green Book was published every year from nineteen thirty six through nineteen sixty four and sold at Esso service stations and other smaller retailers. So a brand that's today part of ex On Mobile, was known for being widely welcoming of black employees, franchisees, and customers. The Green Book was a lifeline for black travelers, many of whom carried fresh memories of humiliation by white

business owners. Not only in the Jim Crow South, plenty of northern and western towns and cities had sundown laws stating that no black person could be within the city limits after nightfall. Conducting interviews for a forthcoming documentary on The Green Book, Ramsey spoke with a woman who can't forget being a little girl on a family road trip through Florida in the early nineteen fifties when she suddenly

became ill and needed a place to rest. Ramsey said her father went to three or four different hotels and motels and they turned him away. He said, my daughter is really ill and needs a bed to rest peacefully for a while, and they all said no. She remembers it was the first time she had ever seen her father cry. The Green Book was created to ensure that other black families didn't have to endure such degradations, difficult teas,

and potential dangers. Flipping through the ninety edition, there are paid advertisements from black owned businesses, in addition to detailed listings for every major city in each state. In some locales, options were limited. South Dakota, for example, had only two listings, a service station and the private tourist home of one Mrs J. Moxley. Included in the forty eight page booklet

is a letter from a grateful reader named WILLIAMS. Smith from Hackensack, New Jersey, who wrote, we earnestly believe the Green Book will mean as much, if not more, to us, as the Triple A means to the white race. Ramsey explained that roadside assistance organizations like Triple A often didn't accept black members, and that savvy black travelers would bring along extra fan belts and spark plugs for long journeys.

Seven edition of the Green Book starts with a section on automotive preparedness and how to keep a car up and running. Victor Greene may have left school after the eighth grade, but his brilliant publication opened up America's roads and highways to millions of black families. Green died in nineteen sixty four, years shy of the passing of the

Civil Rights Act, a moment he had long awaited. Green wrote in the introduction to the nine edition, quote, there will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is, when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication, for then we can go wherever we please and without embarrassment. But until that time comes, we shall continue to publish this information

for your convenience each year. Today's episode was written by Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler Clang for more in this and lots of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.