Green Rider Green Book (sometimes styled Green Motor Racer Book or titled The Negro Travelers' Green Book ) is the annual manual for African-American roadtrippers, commonly referred to simply as the Green Book . It originated and was published by New York City postman Victor Hugo Green from 1936 to 1966, during the Jim Crow law era, when open and often legally discriminatory discrimination against non-whites was widespread. Despite pervasive racial discrimination and poverty limiting black car ownership, the new African-American middle class began buying cars as quickly as possible, but faced various dangers and discomfort along the way, from food and lodging rejection to arbitrary arrest. In response, Green wrote his guidelines for services and places that are relatively friendly to African-Americans, eventually extending from New York to most of North America, as well as setting up travel agencies.
Many black Americans are driving, partly to avoid the separation of public transport. As George Schuyler wrote in 1930, "all Negroes can buy cars as soon as possible to be free from discomfort, discrimination, sorting and humiliation." Black Americans who are employed as athletes, entertainers, and sellers are also often traveling for work purposes.
African-American travelers face difficulties like white-owned businesses that refuse to serve them or repair their vehicles, denied accommodation or food by white-owned hotels, and threats of physical violence and forced evictions of the white "sunset cities". Green establishes and publishes Green Books to avoid such problems, collects resources "to provide Negro tourist information that will keep him away from difficulties, embarrassment and make his journey more enjoyable."
From the first issue focused on New York published in 1936, Green expanded its 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 "Biblical journey of darkness during Jim Crow", allowing black tourists to find residences, businesses, and gas stations that will serve them along the way. It's little known outside the African-American community. Not long after the issuance of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits the types of racial discrimination that have made the Green Book necessary, the publication stops and it becomes unclear. There was an interest revived in the early 21st century in connection with the study of black travel during the Jim Crow era.
Four problems (1940, 1947, 1954, and 1963) have been republished in facsimile (as of December 2017), and have sold well.
Video The Negro Motorist Green Book
Traveling in black: African-American travel experience
Prior to the legislative achievement of the Civil Rights Movement, black tourists in the United States faced major problems unknown to most white people. White supremacy has long sought to limit black mobility, and is uniformly hostile to black strangers. As a result, a simple car trip for blacks is full of difficulties and potential dangers. They are subjected to racial profiling by the police department ("black driving" or "DWB"), sometimes seen as "arrogant" or "too prosperous" for driving only, which many white people regard as a prerogative white. They risk harassing or worse inside and outside the highway. A bitter comment published in the 1947 edition of the National Association for the Color Progress Society magazine, The Crisis , highlights the struggle of blacks struggles encountered in recreational travel:
Does a Negro want to pursue a little happiness in a theater, beach, swimming pool, hotel, restaurant, train, plane or boat, golf course, summer or winter? Does he want to stop overnight in a tourist camp while he drives in his 'Seeing America First' birthplace? Well, let him try!
Such restrictions come from colonial times, and are found throughout the United States. After the end of legal slavery in the North and then in the South after the Civil War, most of the free people remained alive at a lower level than the subsistence level, but a small percentage of African-Americans attained the measure of prosperity. They can plan a holiday trip for the first time. The good blacks manage large group trips for as many as 2,000 people at a time, such as traveling by train from New Orleans to resorts along the Gulf of Mexico coast. In the pre-Jim Crow era, this means having to mingle with the white people in hotels, transport, and recreational facilities. They were assisted in this by the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which has made it illegal to discriminate African Americans in public accommodation and public transport.
They face a white counterattack, especially in the South, where in 1877 the white Democrats rule every state government. The law was declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in 1883, resulting in states and towns passing through many segregation laws. White governments in the South require even interstate railroads to enforce their segregation laws, even though national laws require equal treatment of passengers. SCOTUS ruled at Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) that "separate but equal" accommodation is constitutional, but in practice, facilities for blacks are far from equal, generally becoming less qualified and underfunded. Blacks face restrictions and exceptions throughout the United States: if not completely prohibited from the facility, they can use it only at different times than white people or in "normally lower" colored areas.
In 1917, the black writer WEB Du Bois observed that the impact of "recurring racial discrimination" has made it extremely difficult to travel to a number of destinations, from popular resorts to major cities, which are now "puzzling questions like what should be done with the holidays ". It was a problem that affected the growing number of blacks in the first decade of the twentieth century. Tens of thousands of South African Americans migrated from farming in the south to domestic factories and services in the north. No longer confined to subsistence living, many earn enough income and enough time for a holiday trip.
The development of affordable mass-produced automobiles liberated black Americans from having to rely on "Jim Crow cars" - the smoky, outdated and uncomfortable train carriage which was a separate alternative but certainly not the same as the wagons - a more healthy white car. As one black magazine writer commented in 1933, in a car "it is very good to be a captain for change, and our craft pilots to where and where we are.We feel like Vikings What if our craft is dull and limited our strength and our seas are crowned: it is good for the spirit to just give the old train Jim Crow laugh. "
Middle-class blacks all over the United States "are not at all sure how to behave or how white people behave towards them," as Bart Landry said. In Cincinnati, African-American newspaper editor Wendell Dabney wrote of the situation in the 1920s that "hotels, restaurants, eating and drinking places, are almost universally closed to everyone with the least amount of colored blood tincture detectable." Areas without significant black populations outside the South often refuse to accommodate them: no other hotels or accommodations were open to blacks in Salt Lake City in the 1920s. Black tourists are stranded if they have to stop there overnight. Only six percent of the more than 100 motels are lined up on Route 66 US in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which receives black customers. Across the state of New Hampshire, only three motels in 1956 serve African Americans.
George Schuyler reported in 1943, "Many colored families have been riding motorcycles throughout the United States without being able to secure overnight accommodation at a tourist camp or hotel." He suggested that black Americans would be easier to travel abroad than in their own country. In Chicago in 1945, St. Clair Drake and Horace A. Cayton report that "city hotel managers, by general agreement, do not allow the use of hotel facilities by Negroes, especially sleeping accommodations." One incident reported by Drake and Cayton describes the discriminatory treatment imposed even on blacks in mixed race groups:
Two color schoolteachers and several white friends attended lunch at an exclusive coffee shop. Negro women were allowed to sit down, but the waitress ignored them and served white women. One colored woman protested and was told she could eat in the kitchen.
Overcoming discrimination on the road
While cars make it easier for black Americans independently, the difficulties they face in travel are like that, as Lester B. Granger of the National Urban League put it, "as far as travel is concerned, Negroes are the last pioneers of America." Black Travelers often have to carry a bucket or portable toilet in the trunk of their car because they are usually banned in bathrooms and rest areas at service stations and roadside stops. Travel needs such as gasoline are difficult to buy due to discrimination at the gas station. To avoid such problems in the long run, African Americans often pack food and carry petrol crates to their cars. Writing about the road trip he made as a kid in the 1950s, Courtland Milloy of Washington Post recalled that his mother spent the night before the trip of frying chicken and boiling eggs so that his family would have something to eat along the way at the next day.
A black rider observed in the early 1940s that while black travelers felt free in the morning, in the afternoon a "little cloud" appeared. Late in the afternoon, "it creates a shadow of fear in our hearts and irritates us." Where, 'it asks us,' will you stay tonight? '". They often have to spend hours in the evenings trying to find a place to live, sometimes having to sleep in a straw loft or in their own car if they can not find a place. One alternative, if available, is to arrange first to sleep at the home of black friends in the towns or along their route. However, this means twisting and leaving spontaneity that for many people is the main attraction of the automotive.
Civil rights leader John Lewis has recalled how his family prepared the journey in 1951:
There would be no restaurant for us to stop until we were also out of the South, so we took our restaurant right in the car with us.... Stop for gas and use the bathroom take careful planning. Uncle Otis had made this trip before, and he knew which places along the way offered "color" bathrooms and better just passing by. Our maps are marked and our routes are planned as such, with the distance between service stations where it will be safe for us to stop.
Finding accommodation is one of the biggest challenges facing black travelers. Not only are many hotels, motels and boarding houses refuse to serve black customers, but thousands of cities across the United States declare themselves "sunset cities," which all non-white people must go by sunset. A large number of cities across the country are effectively off limits to African-Americans. In the late 1960s, there were at least 10,000 cities across the United States - including large suburbs like Glendale, California (population 60,000 at the time); Levittown, New York (80,000); and Warren, Michigan (180,000). More than half of the Illinois community is a sunken city. The unofficial slogan of Anna, Illinois, which had driven out the African-Americans in 1909, was " A no N o N iggers < b> A agile ".
Even in cities that do not exclude overnight stays by blacks, accommodation is often very limited. African Americans migrating to California to find work in the early 1940s often found themselves camped out on the curb last night due to the absence of hotel accommodation along the way. They are very conscious of the discriminatory treatment they receive. Courtland Milloy's mother, who brought her and her brother down the street while they were children, remembered that "after riding all day I would say to myself, 'Would not it be better if we could spend the night in one of those hotels? 'Would not it be great if we could stop for real food and a cup of coffee?' We'll see white little boys jumping into the motel pool, and you'll all be in the backseat of a hot, sweaty and fighting car. "
African-American travelers face a real physical risk because of the very different rules of separation that exist from one place to another, and the possibility of unlawful violence against them. Activities received in one place can provoke violence several miles down the road. Breaking formal or unwritten racial codes, even inadvertently, can put tourists in great danger. Even driving etiquette is affected by racism; in the Mississippi Delta region, local customs forbade blacks from overtaking white people, to prevent their dust from rising from unpaved roads to cover white-owned cars. A pattern emerges from a white man who deliberately destroys black cars to place their owners "in their place". Stop where the unknown is safe, even to let the kids in the car to escape, pose a risk; Milloy notes that his parents will urge him and his brother to control their need to use the bathroom until they can find a safe place to stop, because "the return path is too dangerous for parents to stop letting their little kids pee".
Local racist laws, discriminatory social codes, separate commercial facilities, racial profiles by police, and sunset towns make road trips into mines of uncertainty and constant risk. Narrative road trips by blacks reflect their anxiety and the dangers they face, presenting a more complex view than those written by whites praising the joy on the streets. Milloy remembers the menacing environment he encountered during his childhood, where he learned about "so many black tourists... just not getting to their destination."
Even foreign blacks are not immune to the discrimination experienced by African-American travelers on a regular basis. In a high-profile incident, Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, Ghana's newly independent finance minister, was denied service at a Howard Johnson restaurant in Dover, Delaware, while traveling to Washington, DC, even after identifying himself with his country position to a staff restaurant. The humiliation caused an international incident, in which the embarrassed President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded by inviting Gbedemah for breakfast at the White House. Repeated and sometimes violent incidents of discrimination directed against black African diplomats, particularly in Route 40 of the US between New York and Washington, DC, led to the administration of President John F. Kennedy setting up Special Service Protocol Sections within the State Department to assist black. diplomats traveling and living in the United States. The State Department considered publishing Negro Motorist Green Books to black diplomats, but ultimately decided not to direct them to black-friendly public accommodations because they wanted to "own all the privileges of white."
John A. Williams wrote in his 1965 book, This Is My Country Too, that he does not believe "white travelers have an idea of ​​how much courage and courage it takes for a Negro to drive the coast to shore. in America." He achieved it with "courage, courage, and much luck," supplemented by "guns and rifles, road atlas, and Travelguide, a list of places in America where Negroes can live without shame, humiliation, or worse. "He noted that black drivers need to be cautious especially in the South, where they are advised to wear a driver's hat or have one seen in the front seat and pretend they are giving the car to white people. Along the way, he had to resist the flow of "disdain for employees, servants, maids, police, and strangers in passing cars." There is a constant need to keep his mind up to the dangers it faces; because he is so conscious, "black [people] have a way of disappearing in the street."
Maps The Negro Motorist Green Book
Segregation means that facilities for African-American riders are limited, but entrepreneurs from both races are aware of lucrative opportunities in the marketing of goods and services to black customers. The challenge for travelers is finding such an oasis in the middle of the desert of discrimination. To solve this problem, African-American authors produced a number of guides to provide travel advice. This includes hotel directories, camps, road houses, and restaurants that will serve African Americans. Jewish travelers, who have long been discriminated against in many vacation spots, create guidelines for their own communities, although they can at least appear to be more easily integrated into the general population. African Americans follow with publications such as the Hotel Guide and Hackley and Harrison Apartments for Color Travelers , published in 1930 to include "Boards, Rooms, Garage Accommodations, etc. In 300 Cities in the United States and Canada ".
The Negro Motorist Green Book is one of the most famous African-American travel guides. It was compiled in 1932 and first published in 1936 by Victor H. Green, a World War I veteran from New York City who worked as a mail courier and then as a travel agent. He said that his goal was "to provide Negro tourist information that will keep him away from trouble, shame, and make his journey more enjoyable." According to an editorial written by Novera C. Dashiell in the 1956 Spring edition of Green Books, "the idea is crystallized when not only [Green] but some friends and acquaintances complain of difficulties encountered: often painful, embarrassed to suffer damaging a vacation or business trip. "
Green asks his readers to provide information "about Negro automotive conditions, wonderful wonders on your journey, places visited by interest and short stories about one's driving experience." He offered a one-dollar reward for each account he received, which he rose to five dollars in 1941. He also obtained information from colleagues at the US Postal Service, who would "wonder about their route" to find suitable public accommodation. The Postal Service is (and is) one of the largest companies in African America, and its employees are ideally located to inform Green where it is safe and friendly for African-American travelers.
The motto of Green Book , which is featured on the front cover, urges black tourists to "Bring Your Green Book with You - You May Need It". The 1949 edition includes a quote from Mark Twain: "The journey is fatal to prejudice", reversing Twain's original meaning; as Cotton Seiler put it, "here are those visited, not visitors, who will find themselves enriched by the meeting." Green commented in 1940 that the Green Book had given black Americans "something authentic to travel and make travel better for Negroes." The ultimate goal is to provide accurate information about the black-friendly accommodation to answer the constant questions facing black drivers: "Where will you stay overnight?" As well as important information about lodging, service stations and garages, it provides details of open recreational facilities for African Americans, including beauty salons, restaurants, nightclubs and country clubs.
The list focuses on four main categories - hotels, motels, tourist homes (private residences, usually owned by African Americans, providing accommodation for travelers), and restaurants. They are governed by the state and divided by the city, giving the name and address of each business. For additional payouts, businesses can list their lists in bold or have a star next to them to show that they're "recommended".
Many such places are run by and for African-Americans and in some cases named after prominent figures in African-American history. In North Carolina, such businesses include Carver, Lincoln and Booker T. Washington hotels, Friendly City beauty salons, Black Beauty Tea Room, New Progressive tailor shop, Big Buster tavern, and Blue Duck Inn. Each edition also includes feature articles about travel and destination, and includes a list of black resorts such as Idlewild, Michigan; Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts; and Belmar, New Jersey. The state of New Mexico is specifically recommended as a place where most motels would welcome "guests on the grounds of 'cash rather than color.'"
Influence
The Green Book attracts sponsors from businesses including the African-American Call and Post from Cleveland, Ohio and Louisville Leader from Louisville, Kentucky. Standard Oil (later Esso) also became a sponsor, thanks to the efforts of James "Billboard" Jackson, sales representative of pioneering African-American esso. Esso's "race group", part of its marketing division, promotes the Green Book that enables Esso's black customers to "go further with less anxiety". In contrast, the Shell gas station is known to reject black customers.
The 1949 edition included Esso's message of support to the reader: "As a representative of Esso Standard Oil Co., we are happy to recommend Green Books for the convenience of your trips Save one in hand each year and when you plan your trip You, let Esso Touring Service give you a map and complete routing, and really 'Happy Motor' - use Esso Products and Esso Service wherever you find Esso's sign. "Photos from some African-American entrepreneurs that have gas stations Esso appeared on the pages of Green Book .
Although Green usually refrains from editorialization on the Green Book, he lets his readers speak for his guide's influence. William Smith of Hackensack, New Jersey, described it as "a credit to the Negro Races" in a letter published in the 1938 edition. He commented:
This is a much-needed book among our races since the advent of the motor age. Realizing the only way we know where and how to reach our pleasure resort is by talking, word of mouth, until the publication of The Negro Motorist Green Book... We sincerely believe that [ ] would mean more if not more to us as AAA meant for the white race. "
Earl Hutchinson Sr., the father of journalist Earl Ofari Hutchinson, wrote of a 1955 move from Chicago to California that "You really do not leave home without the [Green Books ]." Ernest Green, one of Little Rock Nine, used the Green Book to navigate 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from Arkansas to Virginia in the 1950s and commented that "it is one of survival tools of a separate life ". According to civil rights leader Julian Bond, given his parents are using the Green Book, it's a handbook that tells you where not the best place to eat, but where there is every place. " Bond comments:
You think about things that most tourists take for granted, or most people today take for granted. If I go to New York City and want a haircut, it's pretty easy for me to find a place where it can happen, but it's not easy. The white barber will not cut black hair. White beauty salon will not accept black women as customers - hotels and so on, on the phone. You need Green Book to tell you where you can go without slamming the door on your face.
While Green Book is meant to make life easier for those living under Jim Crow, the publisher is looking forward to the time when the guidebook is no longer needed. As Green writes, "there will be someday in the near future when this guide does not need to be published, it is when we as a race will have the same opportunities and privileges in the United States This will be a good day for us to suspend this publication for later we can go as we please, and without shame. "
Los Angeles is now considering offering special protection to sites that keep black tourists safe. Ken Bernstein, the principal planner for the Office of Historic Resources noted, "At least these sites can be incorporated into our city's online inventory system, they are part of the African American story in Los Angeles, and the story of Los Angeles itself is great. "
Publish history
The Green Book was published locally in New York, but its popularity was such that from 1937 it was distributed nationally with input from Charles McDowell, the Negro Affairs collaborator for the US Travel Bureau, a government agency. With new editions published every year 1936-1940, the Green Book publication was suspended during World War II and continued in 1946. Its scope expanded greatly during the publication years; from covering only the metropolitan area of ​​New York City in the first edition, eventually covering facilities in most of the United States and parts of Canada (mainly Montreal), Mexico and Bermuda. Good coverage in the eastern and weak US in the Great Plains state such as North Dakota, where there are some blacks. It eventually sold about 15,000 copies per year, distributed by mail order, by black-owned businesses and Esso service stations, some of which - unusual for the oil industry at the time - were franchises for African Americans.
It originally sold for 25 cents, increased to $ 1.25 in 1957. With the growing book's success, Green retired from the post office and hired a small publishing staff operating from 200 West 135th Street in Harlem. He also set up a holiday reservation service in 1947 to take advantage of the post-war boom on a car trip. Of the 10 pages in its first edition, in 1949 he has expanded Green Books to over 80 pages, including ads.
1951 Green Book recommends that black-owned businesses raise their standards, as travelers "are no longer content to pay the highest prices for lower accommodation and services". The quality of black-owned homes is under surveillance, as many prosperous blacks find them second-class people compared to white-owned homes from which they are excluded. In 1952, Green was renamed the Negro Green Book, , in recognition of his coverage of international destinations requiring travel by plane and ship. Although segregation is still in effect, by state laws in the South and often with practice elsewhere, the widespread circulation of the Green Book has attracted interest from white businesses who want to take advantage of the potential sales of the black market. The 1955 edition notes:
Several years after the publication... the white business has also recognized the value of The Green Book and is now used by Esso Standard Oil Co., The American Automobile Assn. and its affiliated car clubs across the country, other car clubs, airways, travel agencies, travelers, libraries, and thousands of customers.
In the early 1960s, Green Book '
The 1966 edition was the last edition published after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made the guidelines effectively obsolete by banning racial discrimination in public accommodation. The last edition of the Green Book includes significant changes that reflect the post-Civil Rights Act's views. The title is changed to Tour Green Book: International Edition - no longer just for Negroes, or bikers - because the publisher is trying to expand its appeal. Although content continues to proclaim its mission of highlighting recreation options for black tourists, its cover features blond water skiing - a sign of how, as Michael Ra-Shon Hall says, "Green Books" whiten the surface and internationalize its scope, while remaining true to mission its establishment to ensure the safety of African-American tourists both in the US and abroad. "
Representation in other media
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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