Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Boglebom. When author and playwright Calvin Alexander Ramsey
Speaker 1: was growing up in Baltimore in the nineteen fifties, he
Speaker 1: never really questioned why his family, like all other black
Speaker 1: families he knew, would leave for vacation car trips at
Speaker 1: two or three in the morning, and he never thought
Speaker 1: twice about the fact that the family always slept at
Speaker 1: private homes instead of hotels, used to the side of
Speaker 1: the road as a restroom, and packed their own food
Speaker 1: with them for the length of the journey. Only years
Speaker 1: later did Ramsey realize that his parents avoided restaurants, gas stations,
Speaker 1: and hotels in order to protect him from the racist
Speaker 1: degradations and very real dangers of traveling while black in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties America. Until the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights
Speaker 1: Act formally ended segregation and made it a crime to
Speaker 1: discriminate on the basis of skin color, the tradition of
Speaker 1: the Great American road trip was very different for families
Speaker 1: of color. Black motorists traveling outside of major city centers
Speaker 1: had no way of knowing whether the local service station
Speaker 1: would sell gas or if there were any restaurants serving
Speaker 1: black customers within a hundred mile radius. In nineteen thirty six,
Speaker 1: a black mailman living in Harlem, New York, decided to
Speaker 1: do something about it. Inspired by Jewish publications that listed
Speaker 1: safe places for Jewish travelers to eat and sleep on
Speaker 1: the road, Victor Hugo Green published the first edition of
Speaker 1: the Green Book. Inside the pages of the Green Book,
Speaker 1: black travelers could find state by state listings of hotels
Speaker 1: and private tourist homes to spend the night, plus restaurants, barbershops,
Speaker 1: service stations, and stores where their business was welcome. Calvin
Speaker 1: Alexander Ramsay, who wrote a popular children's book in two
Speaker 1: called Ruth and the Green Book, as well as a
Speaker 1: play about the Green Book, explains that Green relied on
Speaker 1: a network of fellow blackmailmen across the country to compile
Speaker 1: listings of businesses and private residents, and then mailed addresses
Speaker 1: back to Green's wife and Harlem, who would add them
Speaker 1: to the always expanding publication. A new edition of the
Speaker 1: Green Book was published every year from nineteen thirty six
Speaker 1: through nineteen sixty four and sold at black owned ESSO
Speaker 1: service stations. The Green Book was a lifeline for black travelers,
Speaker 1: many of whom carried fresh memories of humiliation at the
Speaker 1: hands of white business owners. And not only in the
Speaker 1: Jim Crow South, Plenty of northern and western towns and
Speaker 1: cities had sundown laws stating that no black person should
Speaker 1: be found within the city limits after nightfall. Conducting interviews
Speaker 1: for a forthcoming documentary on The Green Book, Ramsey spoke
Speaker 1: to a woman who, as a little girl on a
Speaker 1: family road trip through Florida in the early nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: suddenly became ill and needed a place to rest. Ramsey
Speaker 1: said her father went to three or four different hotels
Speaker 1: and motels and they turned him away. He said, my
Speaker 1: daughter is really ill and needs a bed to rest
Speaker 1: peacefully for a while, and they all said no. She
Speaker 1: remembers it was the first time she had ever seen
Speaker 1: in her father cry. The Green Book was created to
Speaker 1: ensure that other black families didn't have to endure such
Speaker 1: dehumanizing treatment in an age when many white business owners
Speaker 1: felt it was perfectly acceptable to refuse black patrons. Flipping
Speaker 1: through the nineteen forty edition, there are paid advertisements from
Speaker 1: black owned businesses, in addition to detailed listings for every
Speaker 1: major city in each state. In some locals, options were limited.
Speaker 1: South Dakota, for example, only had two listings, a service
Speaker 1: station and the private tourist home of Mrs J. Moxley.
Speaker 1: Included in the forty eight page booklet is a letter
Speaker 1: from a grateful reader named William Smith from Hackensack, New Jersey,
Speaker 1: who wrote, we earnestly believe the Green Book will mean
Speaker 1: as much, if not more, to us, as the Triple
Speaker 1: A means to the white race. Ramsay explains that roadside
Speaker 1: assistance organizations like Triple A often didn't accept black members,
Speaker 1: and that savvy black travelers would bring along extra fan
Speaker 1: belts and spark plugs for long journeys. Edition of the
Speaker 1: Green Book starts with a section on automotive preparedness and
Speaker 1: how to keep a car up and running. Victor Green's
Speaker 1: publication opened up America's roads and highways to millions of
Speaker 1: black families. He died in nineteen sixty four, years shy
Speaker 1: of the passing of the Civil Rights Act, a moment
Speaker 1: he had long awaited, Green wrote in the introduction to
Speaker 1: the edition, there will be a day sometime in the
Speaker 1: near future when this guide will not have to be published.
Speaker 1: That is when we as a race will have equal
Speaker 1: opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be
Speaker 1: a great day for us to suspend this publication, for
Speaker 1: then we can go wherever we please and without embarrassment.
Speaker 1: But until that time comes, she'll continue to publish this
Speaker 1: information for your convenience each year. Today's episode was written
Speaker 1: by Dave Rouse and published by Tyler Clang. For more
Speaker 1: on this and lots of other topics, visit our home planet,
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com.