The Green Book Database, 1936-1967
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, located in Harlem, New York, recently digitized Victor Green’s entire collection of The Negro Motorist Green Book, which kept African Americans from harm along the highways and byways of Jim Crow America. From 1936 to 1966 (with only a pause for WWII), Green published the directories known today as the Green Book. (The actual titles were variously: The Negro Motorist Green Book; The Negro Travelers’ Green Book; The Travelers’ Green Book). These listed—first in NYC only, later throughout much of the world—hotels, restaurants, beauty salons, nightclubs, bars, gas stations, etc. where black travelers would be welcome.