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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"The Negro Motorist Green Book". Here's your White Privilege.
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 black poverty limited car ownership, the emerging African-American middle class bought automobiles as soon as they could. In response, Green expanded the coverage in his book from the New York area to much of North America, also 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."[1] Black Americans employed as athletes, entertainers, and salesmen also traveled frequently for work purposes.
African-American travelers faced a variety of dangers and inconveniences, 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 Negro Motorist Green Book to tackle 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."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book
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"The Negro Motorist Green Book". Here's your White Privilege. (Original Post)
trof
Feb 2017
OP
Has anyone analyzed the Route 66 song to see if there are any correlations?
Baitball Blogger
Feb 2017
#3
Warpy
(111,339 posts)1. It's also an example of how unequal "separate but equal" was
I remember seeing one of these in the early 60s, when they were still necessary in a lot of the country, and noting that every white person's hotel and motel had a big sign out front, but the only advertising for hotels in the green book was their address printed there. Restaurants did advertise, but only if they were in "black" areas of big cities.
I thought the whole thing was insane back then and 50 years of time have not changed my opinion.
progressoid
(49,999 posts)2. But we don't need anything like that now!
Ya know, because the sixties are over and also that famous republican, Abraham Lincoln, freed the slaves and stuff.
Baitball Blogger
(46,757 posts)3. Has anyone analyzed the Route 66 song to see if there are any correlations?