The Green Book (1936-1964), also known as “The Negro Motorist Green Book” or “The Negro Travelers’ Green Book”, was the best-known travel guide for blacks in America in the 1950s. It listed not the best places but often the only places which welcomed black travellers in those days.
One writer called it “the bible of every Negro traveler in the 1950s and early 1960s. You literally didn’t dare leave home without it.” You did not dare because otherwise you might get stuck without a place to eat or sleep. Blacks could not stay at most motels or even use the restrooms at most service stations. Howard Johnson was the only nationwide chain where blacks could eat and sleep. Esso (now called Exxon) also served blacks.
It was not a matter of money but of race: most blacks who had cars, after all, were well-to-do. Even rich and famous blacks were turned away from hotels and restaurants. And this was not just in the Jim Crow South either but all over the country. There were whole towns, hundreds of them in the North and the West called sundown towns, where blacks had to leave by nightfall.
Back then you packed as much food as you could, took a bucket and sometimes slept in the car. Travelling at night made it less likely the police would stop you since your colour is harder to see in the dark.
The practice of white businesses refusing to serve blacks (and sometimes even Jews) was not outlawed till 1964 when the Civil Rights Act became law. At long last there was no longer any need for the Green Book.
The Green Book was named after the man who started it, Victor H. Green, a Harlem postman. It was not the first or only such book, but it seems to have been the best known.
The first Green Book came out in 1936. It covered just New York and nearby towns. But it was such a hit that Green soon extended it to all of America. In 1949 he added Alaska, Canada, Mexico and Bermuda. By 1956 it even had listings for South America and the West Indies.
In 1949 it was 80 pages long and cost $0.75 (1 crown). On the cover it said:
Travel is fatal to prejudice – Mark Twain.
Thanks to the Internet you can see the full 1949 edition!
The book listed hotels, restaurants, garages, beauty parlors, barbers, tailors, taverns, etc. It also listed tourist homes: the homes of people willing to put up black travellers – like the Underground Railroad.
In the early days Green travelled and checked out many of the places himself. Later he had help from blacks who travelled on business and letters from hundreds of people. Green did not list every single place that accepted blacks, just the ones he knew of.
In 2005 Calvin Ramsey wrote a play, “The Green Book” based on the book as well as travel stories he has heard from those days. Later he made it into a children’s book: “Ruth and the Green Book” (2010).
See also:
- The Negro Motorist Green Book, 1949 – warning: the file is pretty big: 92 megs
- sundown towns
- driving while black
- Jim Crow
- Paul Robeson
- whites-only stuff from the current day:
Wow, I have never heard of such a book, but it makes sense. I’m going to ask my parents (who are both in their sixties) if they ever heard of this green book.
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Wow. I was just reading my local “Good Food Guide” before I read this post. It is bizarre to think that a group of people needed such a book to know not just where to get good food and service, but any food and service at all.
Interesting how oppressive conditions can create some clever entrepreneurs who give people what others take for granted.
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Wow! I would love to find a copy of this. Never heard of it, and I pride myself on knowing a lot about Black American culture. thank you for this! I shop at thrift stores and yard sales, and will be on the lookout.
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One note: “Ruth and the Green book” is a picture book, which makes it even more sad to read. You know, all those beautiful illustrations, and the text on them says things such as “they didn’t let us use restrooms so mama and I had to go into the woods”.
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1964 = not that long ago. only 13 years before I was born. Yet I have heard several white friends and coworkers say things like…”why can’t they get over it, slavery ended like hundreds of years ago.”
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Society has come a long way in a short amount of time. But I do get the “get over it” mafia. It is as if they believe in their minds that Blacks only have to complain about Slavery, and after it was abolished. Black people had 100% equal rights as whites, and we are just lazy complainers.
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(Newbie here)
That was an interesting read. I can’t say I’ve ever heard of either books. I do know of the stiff laws that were in place and the lack of hotels and other places that served “negros” in the South but I never knew there was a book to find those who do.
You learn something new every day….
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Dear Jason Burns,
I hear people say that also but I see it more as a “will you move on already” kind of expression. I personally watch my blacks still complain about things and use it to justify other things but there are too many opportunities (way more than there were 40 years ago) given to us. We have some way to go but we came a long way and despite the disadvantage those blacks back then had, they weren’t dwelling on it and they were moving forward and trying to change it.
Now we seem to be stuck in the race and sitting down waiting for someone else to carry us over the finish line.
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I don’t see why people (usually White people) bring up that “slavery was so long ago” as if current injustices don’t exist. It’s an illogical argument, really, because it rests on the faulty premise that slavery is the end-all-be-all of racism (or discrimination, or injustice, take your pick).
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Julia M
What black person says “my blacks.”
Before 50 years ago Black communities had in some places more resources. Business rents and business location were reasonable. Urban Renewal in cahoots with the Highway projects broke up communities and scattered Black people. Many didn’t get enough money for their property with the states using Eminent Domain, so people like my parents had to start over again. The small shops and businesses could not locate in many case near their customers so their demise was usually quite quick.
I can tell you that black people complained then, it just wasn’t for white consumption. Those complaints could cause you to lose you livelihood. No one was happy that you had no public facilities, could travel without extreme planning, eat where you wanted or be able to be want you wanted to be. Not every college graduate was grateful to be a teacher, lawyer, minister or doctor. Late in the 60’s I had a friend that got a Physics degree and worked at Oak Ridge(research and military nuclear facilities), he was treated very badly which made him give up science and go into Law.
I like to know just how much are we suppose to take and keep our mouths shut. We can speak now without fear.
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Interesting piece — I had never heard about the book or books like it before, either. Pretty clever.
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Julia said
“I hear people say that also but I see it more as a “will you move on already” kind of expression.”
What right does anyone have to say “move on” to black people? How are you supposed to move on when racism is still going on? there is a difference between wallowing in self pity and acknowledging injustice. why is that so hard to grasp?
Everybody has to work hard if they want to get anywhere. So? That means racism doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter?
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Racism seems back in full force if you ask me… Or maybe (hopefully) this is the cusp of another big leap forward,
It must have been terrible right before the civil rights act, when people were confronting the jim crow laws, and those that agreed with them were being told how wrong they were, even by whites, and they were afraid as hell to see them go, and as a consequence, were militant as hell in thier discrimination.
Or right before the end of slavery, when its morality was widely discussed, the last of the people who actually bought slaves must have been the biggest arseholes of all the slaveowners, since obviously they had considered the morality of it, it was a topic of the day, they did not just do it cause it was available to them, out of ignorance or thoughtlessness… THEY KNEW… yet they still decided to buy people. Knowing that people were starting to dissaprove made them dig in even more. At the end, purchasing a slave was not just amoral and disgusting… but these guys were also defying common opinion. It was a political act.
I look at todays racism all over the news and i think, these people MUST be aware of thier stupidity, and because they are the last of the breed, they are being even MORE racist in thier rhetoric than they would if they were not trying to prove an anti political correctness point…
Jackie Robinson’s Widow tells many horrifying stories them of not being served or allowed in hotels with his teammates… JACKIE ROBINSON!!!! He was easily the most famous and well loved baseball hero this country ever saw by blacks AND whites…and even HE was not allowed in ‘white’ places.
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Dear Jason Burns and Hathor,
I didn’t realize I said something wrong in my comment. Clearly I offended the both of you and I’m going to bow out of this one.
I just want to reply to a few comments made and then I’m gone.
The comment about “my blacks” is the same as someone say “my brother” or “my sister”. It’s a cultural thing and it must be out of style now. I evidently didn’t get the memo.
I’m in no way implying that we should forget about racism and injustices because they both happen and they should be addressed but I was talking about individuals who blame their life problems on it instead of taking responsibility and realizing that things aren’t as bad as one might make it. Our parents and grandparents survived and the black community was in a better state despite the hardships they faced.
As for the “moving on”, I do think that we need to let it go. I personally don’t live my life in the past and though I’m well aware of black history, I don’t allow it to burden me and make me a victim. I’ve did what I wanted to do and I did it without dwelling on the past and other injustices that occurred.
At the end of the day, they are unfair and I wish I could change it but I can’t. Instead I will move forward and stop living my life out of a 1960’s Textbook and live in the present. The present that holds more far opportunities than the past ever will.
Just to comment on your friend, I’m sorry he went through that. With that, I do hope he let it go and moved on with his life. We can’t change the past; we can only look towards the future.
-Julia
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Racism seems back in full force if you ask me
Right. I think what you’re seeing now is the resentment that’s been festering in the underground, behind closed doors and such for years finally come to the surface en masse.
I look at todays racism all over the news and i think, these people MUST be aware of thier stupidity, and because they are the last of the breed, they are being even MORE racist in thier rhetoric than they would if they were not trying to prove an anti political correctness point…
Agreed. They really have nothing left, so they’re just throwing Hail Mary’s.
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Hathor,
“Late in the 60′s I had a friend that got a Physics degree and worked at Oak Ridge(research and military nuclear facilities), he was treated very badly which made him give up science and go into Law.”
Huh… I was going to do an internship at Oak Ridge as an undergrad until I spoke to this director who was giving me some racist vibes. Doesn’t seem likes its changed much.
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When I was a kid around six years old, 1961 or so, I recall an auto trip I took with my father and mother from Oklahoma (where there were still separate racial facilies into the late 60s and sundown towns into the early 70s) to Florida. I don’t know if he had a Green Book, but whenever he had to stop for gas he told us to stay in the car while he walked into the station. Sometimes he’d come out and we’d drive away, sometimes he’d come out and tell us we could use the restroom. He would do the same thing at roadside restaurants.
I distinctly do recall him saying, as we neared major cities like Montgomery, that he was always looking for a Howard Johnsons to stop for supper. I didn’t know until reading this article that Howard Johnson’s was indeed special.
>>Julia M. The comment about “my blacks” is the same as someone say “my brother” or “my sister”. It’s a cultural thing and it must be out of style now. I evidently didn’t get the memo.<<
No, it's not. We never said "my blacks." I was there back then, and I remember.
Any Boomer my age or older remembers very well the kind of apartheid society the US was back then. It existed in both the North and the South, although its character differed. In many cases, it lingered far longer than 1964. The last day I sat in a segregated movie theater was July 20, 1969. Later that evening, I watched Walter Cronkite report Neil Armstrong's landing on the moon. That little Oklahoma town was in the news not long ago–the town newspaper refused to print Obama's election to the presidency, printing only that McCain had won the county.
Every Boomer, black or white, was affected by apartheid. There were some good points in my childhood–schools, for instance, where all the teachers were well-educated, black, and lived in the same neighborhoods as our parents. They were frustrated because they could go no further or farther, but to a little kid that was an unknown problem. If you want to see my childhood, read or watch "Once Upon a Time, When We Were Colored." I knew every character in that story from my own childhood.
I was late enough to have marched, early enough to be threatened by the KKK for marching. My mother carefully taught me to be wary of white men the same way she taught me to be wary of unleased strange dogs. Either could become instantly and unpredictably deadly with little or no provocation…and feared no repercussion.
What I have seen in the last couple of years is that few of us who knew apartheid have actually gone far from it. The same attitudes have been there all along, only undercover. I listen to demigogs like Limbaugh and Beck and I'm hearing the same rhetoric, with "socialist" substituting for "nigger." I listened to the McCain rallies and especially the Palin rallies, and heard the same thirst for murder I heard from white crowds when I marched to desegate a swimming pool or movie theater. I hear it at Tea Party rallies.
Jimmy Carter knows it. He's old enough, and being a southerner, he heard it too. That's why he said there is a lot of racism in the white reaction to everything Obama does. He knows the sound, too.
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>>Kim–Or right before the end of slavery, when its morality was widely discussed, the last of the people who actually bought slaves must have been the biggest arseholes of all the slaveowners, since obviously they had considered the morality of it, it was a topic of the day, they did not just do it cause it was available to them, out of ignorance or thoughtlessness… THEY KNEW… yet they still decided to buy people. Knowing that people were starting to dissaprove made them dig in even more. At the end, purchasing a slave was not just amoral and disgusting… but these guys were also defying common opinion. It was a political act.<<
Let me tell you something, Kim: They ALWAYS knew slavery was a sin. They knew that–it was discussed, preached, argued–even before the American Revolution. Benjamin Franklin was the first president of the Abolition Society before he ever became a Founding Father.
Thomas Jefferson admitted the truth about it: He admitted that slavery was a sin, but they were not prepared to give up their comfortable lifestyle. He wrote that in a letter you can still find on the Internet.
You've heard of the "5/8ths" clause in the Constitution, but most people today get the controversy backwards. It was the slave states who wanted their slaves fully counted–to increase their Congressional representation. The free states did not want slaves counted at all. If the free states had won that debate, they would have been able to abolish slavery decades earlier.
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“You’ve heard of the “5/8ths” clause in the Constitution, but most people today get the controversy backwards.”
True. The counting of slaves as “5/8th of a person” was engineered by the non-slave states as a compromise, in order to lessen the power of the slave-holding states in Congress. The South wanted their slaves to be fully counted and 100% of a person (when it came to getting more seats in Congress.)
Most people think that it was some edict by the American government in order to declare Blacks as sub-human. It was really more about whether slaves would be counted at the same level as citizens for the reasons mentioned above.
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I listen to demigogs like Limbaugh and Beck and I’m hearing the same rhetoric, with “socialist” substituting for “nigger.” I listened to the McCain rallies and especially the Palin rallies, and heard the same thirst for murder I heard from white crowds when I marched to desegate a swimming pool or movie theater. I hear it at Tea Party rallies.
I’m glad you pointed this out. Too many times, I’ve heard “them” use terms like “handouts” and “entitlements” and complaining about taxes and social programs — “they” think they can get away with using these pseudo-euphemisms to mask what they really want to say and how they really feel and will lie to your face, saying that race has absolutely nothing to do with it when confronted.
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Oh.
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Why is my comment awaiting moderation?
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Because it used the n-word.
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The counting of slaves as “5/8th of a person” 3/5. /Nitpick
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I don’t know who you are, nor does it matter, the clarity and wisdom of your insights define you as a person endowed with exceptional reasoning. Thank you for your posts, they always force me to reexamine my motivations and responsibilities.
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RDKirk, fair enough, point taken, they even at the beginning must have known they were wrong, the idea of owning a person is so contrary to any form of human decency. But for a time, I think a slave owner in the south could have lived quite comfortably with nobody ever saying anything to him. My larger point was, at the end, more and more, people were coming slowly to know that it was inexcusably wrong to own a person. As time passed and the abolition movement grew louder and stronger, the owners of slaves MUST have felt social pressure. And the condemnation must have been more and more bold. And like the bazillionaire Rush limbaugh, glenn beck types of today, who are watching total collapse of society because of thier unregulated robbery capitalism… faught harder and harder to keep thier gravy train from pulling out of the station.
As for thier inbred white mouth breathing followers, from the antibellum south, to Jim Crow, to todays lean times, I dont know what could make a man, who is being chumped, want to look at somebody with even less opportunity than his to blame for thier problems. I cant explain the hater followers, the hater leaders though… they just want to protect thier ill gotten gain.
And at both you AND King. you are right in your assumption i did not know about the logic behind the 3/5th of a person notation. I have to say, it makes it seem a little less cruel and shameful to know that even at the time of the revolution, this country was divided enough on slavery to try and limit its power. Thanks for educating me 🙂
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>>But for a time, I think a slave owner in the south could have lived quite comfortably with nobody ever saying anything to him. My larger point was, at the end, more and more, people were coming slowly to know that it was inexcusably wrong to own a person. As time passed and the abolition movement grew louder and stronger, the owners of slaves MUST have felt social pressure. <<
It made them insane to cling to it. By the time of the Civil War, slaveholders had gone beyond even limiting slavery to blacks. Part of the reason was because Northern journalists had noted that a significant number of "slaves" were indistinguishable from whites. The southern response was, "So? You Northerners should start enslaving Irish and Germans?"
The Fugitive Slave Act did not spark riots among northern whites because they loved blacks. It was because the Fugitive Slave Act was so loosely that it would allow unscrupulous slave catchers to claim a poor white was a runaway slave, and the Act required the local police to acquiesce to whatever the slave catcher claimed.
The sexual immorality in slavery was well known–black women raped by slave owners for the specific purpose of breeding light-skinned slaves for sexual purposes. Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" must be read with an understanding of the KNOWN CONTEXT of its time. The readers of that day understood the sexual context of what was written between the lines….that's why Lincoln, when introduced to Stowe, said, "This is the little woman who sparked the big war."
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>>And like the bazillionaire Rush limbaugh, glenn beck types of today, who are watching total collapse of society because of thier unregulated robbery capitalism… faught harder and harder to keep thier gravy train from pulling out of the station.<<
Not different now from 1860, and that's what's so incredible about such people. Northerners did not object to slavery in the new western states because they loved blacks. It was clearly known that slavery devalued the worth of a white man's labor. Even skilled labor, such as blacksmithing, paid a white man nothing because slaves were also skilled, and slave owners rented their services for low rates. Slavery was an institution that kept poor whites poor, and that was no big mystery.
Yet, poor Southern whites bought into the lies that "Your liberty is at stake from those in Washington who want to tell you how to live!"
As incredible as that sounds…you're seeing it happen again right before your eyes. "Joe the Plumber" can't even see that wealthy whites are duping him into supporting their system of using Chinese slave labor to keep him poor…and again pointing at the black man as somehow the cause.
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‘Not different now from 1860, and that’s what’s so incredible about such people. Northerners did not object to slavery in the new western states because they loved blacks. It was clearly known that slavery devalued the worth of a white man’s labor. Even skilled labor, such as blacksmithing, paid a white man nothing because slaves were also skilled, and slave owners rented their services for low rates. Slavery was an institution that kept poor whites poor, and that was no big mystery.’
RDKirk, that IS what is so incredible… I did a paper in school about the movement to end child labor in America, and it was for the same reasons.. NOT because people objected then (or do now, shamefully, as long as they are foreign children) to buying products made by children in horrifying circumstances, but because it makes societal sense to bring every worker up by ending injustice to the biggest victims of harm. The message put out by people within the movement was to illuminate the horrors of children in mines that never made it to adulthood, and pull heartstrings, but the actual force behind the movement was to make life easier for adult workers. So like slavery, and abuse of chinese, irish, german etc workers, it was only ended out of selfishness.
At the time though, the message of the child employers was the same as it is today, and in the slave south and the civil rights movement. Just insert your own group name here (Mexican, Black, Mick, Coolie, Kraut, WOP, child whose family needs the income, Chinese peasant who would starve without the opportunity to live in a dorm and work for practically free)’We could never function without () because it would be just too expensive to buy anything’ ‘It would cost ten dollars for a head of lettuce’ These () are living so much better in thier circumstances than they ever could on thier own. Without (xgroup or huge tax break) who could hire you? ‘ It’s all the same, and it never stops, because there are always idiots who buy into this logic.
IMO What IS Different in the case of blacks…is the continuation, While some earlier arrivals, MOST white americans fell into the same trap, generation after generation. Few white americans owned slaves, but many white americans owned hotels, businesses or cafes that did not serve or hire blacks. Business owners in towns who DID or do hire blacks (or mexicans) paid them less, and told everyone who would listen that they HAD to, cause of (see previous prochild labor excuses, but add affirmative action and those evil unions to the list later in history)
Even white people born as late as the seventies, and even in places like boston, took part in anti-desegregation riots when black kids got bussed into thier schools. The green book that this post is about is SHOCKINGLY small, when you consider the size of this country and the amount of businesses in any given area (more then that in todays bigbox world) The Irish and Germans may have been publicly murdered, or burnt alive in riots by the british descended, self proclaimed ‘natives’ but they turned around fifty years later and joined right in doing the same to the newly freed blacks, who were the very socioeconomic picture of themselves on arrival here.
I just want to scream at people, Dammit WE HAVE BEEN HERE BEFORE!!!! Supposedly we learned from it.. so WHY do we keep doing it?
and RDKirk, you also said
‘Yet, poor Southern whites bought into the lies that “Your liberty is at stake from those in Washington who want to tell you how to live!” ‘
‘
check this out… it is John Stewart skewering Glenn Beck at about 4.5 mn in… you will realize the Beck has done his homework when it comes to manipulating working class whites.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/jon-stewart-on-glenn-beck-restoring-honor-rally-i-have-a-scheme/
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“There were whole towns, hundreds of them in the North and the West called sundown towns, where blacks had to leave by nightfall.”
While very serious, and disheartening, this admittedly made me chuckle a bit as well. Making colored folk leave town by nightfall, as if they’re going to turn into Lycans and take away all the white women.
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I recently found out that my mom’s hometown in Eastern Wisconsin was one of these. But I also found out another thing about it: for some reason the Dutch (my mom’s ethnic group) were at the bottom of the social pecking order there. Which seems strange, going on a strictly racialist interpretation of history.
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[…] racist views, blacks are now free to travel throughout the south without needing things like the Green Book. And sundown towns no longer exist, thanks to the Civil Rights Act. Frankly, you sound rather […]
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[…] Information on The Negro Motorist Green Book found at: https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/08/17/the-green-book/ […]
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I truly wish I’d been born back in the 40’s or 50’s, when segregation was in full swing. Yeahyeahyeah I’m a this & I’m a that, but what’s most true out of all this, is that so WHAT racism is alive still. IT ALWAYS WILL be. Tolerance is a one-sided word for sure, ‘specially when ign-oant blacks like to cry bout who’s not with their program of acceptance. How many years are you going to waste your time on it? It’ll NEVER be stomped out, nor will it EVER disappear. NO gov’t or group of pissed off miscreants will change people like me, there are a lot more of us than you think, and we DO NOT have to like nih/gerzz, kikes or wops OR gays. NOW, calling all crybabies, whistle-blowers, bigots, amoebas, vegatarians, and pro-gays, lets see who the first spineless sponge of a person to critique my as-equally-valid-as-yours-opinion. Ha!
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This is a good post, Wow, black motorist had to have a guide book to keep them safe during the turbulent era of Jim Crow. I was made aware of this during a scene in the Hallmark Channel movie The Watsons Go To Birmingham. There was a scene in the movie where the family was on their way to Birmingham from their home in Detroit, and the father had to pull out his green book to find lodging for the family where it would be safe for black people to find food,gas, lodging. Black folks have gone through some trying times in this country.
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Wow…..I guess Doug got a response to the irrelevance of his post. Silence, but then again I have to wonder if that is the reason they go on certain posts where there is little or no comment. For the purpose of avoiding having someone to respond to them.
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@Sharina: I have come to pity these cowards.
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We may not need a green book today, but it is still a hazard driving while black. And God help the poor soul that runs into a situation where there vehicle is stalled or they have an accident, looking for someone to help, and one could lose their life. The struggle continues.
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*their*
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I agree Mary. It most certainly continues.
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Interesting that the Washington Post had an article on this a few days ago:
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/08/the-forgotten-way-african-americans-stayed-safe-in-a-racist-america/)
The forgotten way African Americans stayed safe in a racist America
The entire set from 1936 to 1964 has been digitized, and there is now an interactive map that could help you plot a theoretical trip online using the Green book.
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Oh my, oh my… it seems that things past are coming back…
Advises to peoples of color regarding travelling are being issued today.
Serious issues, it seems:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/02/us/naacp-missouri-travel-advisory-trnd/index.html
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And now it’s a movie.
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