Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff.
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum here. As he was growing up in Baltimore
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties, the author and playwright Calvin Alexander
Speaker 1: Ramsay never really questioned why his family, like all the
Speaker 1: other black families he knew, would leave for vacation car
Speaker 1: trips at two or three in the morning, and he
Speaker 1: never thought twice about the fact that the family always
Speaker 1: slept at private homes instead of in hotels, used the
Speaker 1: side of the road as a restroom, and packed their
Speaker 1: own food with them for the length of the journey.
Speaker 1: Only years later did Ramsey realize that his parents avoided restaurants,
Speaker 1: gas stations, and hotels in order to protect him from
Speaker 1: the racist degradations and very real dangers of traveling will
Speaker 1: black in nineteen fifties America. The nineteen sixty four Civil
Speaker 1: Rights Act formally ended segregation and made it a crime
Speaker 1: to discriminate on the basis of color, But the tradition
Speaker 1: of the Great American road trip has always been very
Speaker 1: different for families of color. Especially before the Act passed,
Speaker 1: Black motorists traveling outside of major city centers had no
Speaker 1: way of knowing if the local service station would sell
Speaker 1: them gas or if there were any restaurants serving black
Speaker 1: customers within a day's drive. In nineteen thirty six, a
Speaker 1: black mailman living in Harlem, New York, decided to do
Speaker 1: something about it. That's when, inspired by Jewish publications that
Speaker 1: listed safe places for Jewish travelers to eat and sleep
Speaker 1: on the road, Victor Hugo Green published the first edition
Speaker 1: of the Negro Motorist Green Book, of that being the
Speaker 1: accepted nomenclature for Black Americans at the time. Inside the
Speaker 1: pages of the Green Book, as it became known, black
Speaker 1: travelers could find state by state listings of hotels and
Speaker 1: private tourist homes to spend the night, plus restaurants, barbershops,
Speaker 1: service stations, and stores where their business was welcome. You
Speaker 1: might be familiar with the Green Book through the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty television series Lovecraft Country, or the novel it was
Speaker 1: based on of the same name, or through the film
Speaker 1: Green Book, though the film has been widely denounced for
Speaker 1: its cloying and inaccurate portrayals of real life people like
Speaker 1: black pianist Dr Donald Waldridge Shirley. The aforementioned author, Calvin
Speaker 1: Alexander Ramsey himself wrote a popular children's book in ten
Speaker 1: called Ruth and the Green Book, as well as a
Speaker 1: play called The Green Book. When we spoke with Ramsey,
Speaker 1: he explained that Green relied on a network of fellow
Speaker 1: black mailmen across the country to compile listings of businesses
Speaker 1: and private residents and mail the addresses back to Green's
Speaker 1: wife in Harlem, who would add them to the always
Speaker 1: expanding publication. A new edition of The Green Book was
Speaker 1: published every year from nineteen thirty six through nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: four and sold at Esso service stations and other smaller retailers.
Speaker 1: So a brand that's today part of ex On Mobile,
Speaker 1: was known for being widely welcoming of black employees, franchisees,
Speaker 1: and customers. The Green Book was a lifeline for black travelers,
Speaker 1: many of whom carried fresh memories of humiliation by white
Speaker 1: business owners. Not only in the Jim Crow South, plenty
Speaker 1: of northern and western towns and cities had sundown laws
Speaker 1: stating that no black person could be within the city
Speaker 1: limits after nightfall. Conducting interviews for a forthcoming documentary on
Speaker 1: The Green Book, Ramsey spoke with a woman who can't
Speaker 1: forget being a little girl on a family road trip
Speaker 1: through Florida in the early nineteen fifties when she suddenly
Speaker 1: became ill and needed a place to rest. Ramsey said
Speaker 1: her father went to three or four different hotels and
Speaker 1: motels and they turned him away. He said, my daughter
Speaker 1: is really ill and needs a bed to rest peacefully
Speaker 1: for a while, and they all said no. She remembers
Speaker 1: it was the first time she had ever seen her
Speaker 1: father cry. The Green Book was created to ensure that
Speaker 1: other black families didn't have to endure such degradations, difficult teas,
Speaker 1: and potential dangers. Flipping through the ninety edition, there are
Speaker 1: paid advertisements from black owned businesses, in addition to detailed
Speaker 1: listings for every major city in each state. In some locales,
Speaker 1: options were limited. South Dakota, for example, had only two listings,
Speaker 1: a service station and the private tourist home of one
Speaker 1: Mrs J. Moxley. Included in the forty eight page booklet
Speaker 1: is a letter from a grateful reader named WILLIAMS. Smith
Speaker 1: from Hackensack, New Jersey, who wrote, we earnestly believe the
Speaker 1: Green Book will mean as much, if not more, to us,
Speaker 1: as the Triple A means to the white race. Ramsey
Speaker 1: explained that roadside assistance organizations like Triple A often didn't
Speaker 1: accept black members, and that savvy black travelers would bring
Speaker 1: along extra fan belts and spark plugs for long journeys.
Speaker 1: Seven edition of the Green Book starts with a section
Speaker 1: on automotive preparedness and how to keep a car up
Speaker 1: and running. Victor Greene may have left school after the
Speaker 1: eighth grade, but his brilliant publication opened up America's roads
Speaker 1: and highways to millions of black families. Green died in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four, years shy of the passing of the
Speaker 1: Civil Rights Act, a moment he had long awaited. Green
Speaker 1: wrote in the introduction to the nine edition, quote, there
Speaker 1: will be a day sometime in the near future when
Speaker 1: this guide will not have to be published. That is,
Speaker 1: when we as a race will have equal opportunities and
Speaker 1: privileges in the United States. It will be a great
Speaker 1: day for us to suspend this publication, for then we
Speaker 1: can go wherever we please and without embarrassment. But until
Speaker 1: that time comes, we shall continue to publish this information
Speaker 1: for your convenience each year. Today's episode was written by
Speaker 1: Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler Clang for more in
Speaker 1: this and lots of other topics, visit how stuff works
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