Green, Victor Hugo

Impact on the world

Published The Negro Motorist Green Book annually from 1936 to 1966, listing thousands of hotels, restaurants, and other businesses nationwide that were Black-owned or verified non-discriminatory, providing what was often literally life-saving information for Black travelers navigating Jim Crow laws and so-called 'sundown towns' where Black people risked violence after dark.

Life & background

A World War I veteran and Harlem postal carrier, Green conceived his guide in 1932 after hearing repeated complaints from himself, friends, and acquaintances about the embarrassments and dangers of traveling while Black, publishing the first 10-page edition in 1936 focused on New York City hotels and restaurants. He built the guide's coverage nationwide by recruiting fellow postal workers and paying readers for field reports on safe establishments, and by the early 1940s the Green Book listed thousands of verified locations across the country. Civil rights leader John Lewis later recalled his family packing food for entire road trips because no restaurant would serve them until they were well out of the South; the Green Book was one of the only tools available to navigate such dangers, continuing publication until 1966, two years after the Civil Rights Act outlawed the discrimination it had been created to help travelers avoid.

Sources

1. Federal Highway Administration; Washington State Historical Society