You’ve seen those movies, right? The ones where the protagonists travel across the country or to foreign lands. In the 2003 film Under the Tuscan Sun an American divorcee begins a new life in Tuscany after a painful divorce. Set in 1950, a young Che Guevara comes of age as he travels from Brazil to Peru in The Motorcycle Diaries. Going back to 1985’s National Lampoon’s European Vacation the Griswold family travel through Europe creating comedic chaos in their wake.
Among the backdrops of beautiful scenery, rugged landscapes, and cultural curiosities it’s not surprising that such films inspire us to take to the roads or air to travel and explore the world for ourselves.
The majority of us think nothing of jumping into our cars and taking a road trip, stopping for food and bathroom breaks along the way. When you’re tired of driving you can pull over and book yourself into a motel for a good night’s rest.
For African Americans this was historically a huge challenge.
During the Jim Crow era (1877 to mid-1960’s), segregated public spaces were a regular way of life. Systems and laws upheld racial inequality making a simple local bus ride an open opportunity for a black American to face racial indignities.
Beginning in the 1920’s in the middle of the Jim Crow era, motorcar ownership began to become widespread. Black Americans who could afford to purchase a car were able to bypass segregation on bus and rail travel for the first time. The feeling of freedom was a temporary respite, because once they pulled off the road segregation was still there.
African Americans were sometimes physically attacked in their cars as they made a stop. An active file of such incidents were kept by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Among the records by the NAACP in the Library of Congress is a photograph of Billy Middlebrooks of Clinton, Tennessee as he tries to talk a mob out of “hauling a Negro motorist from his car”.
Black American travellers, needless to say, had to take strong precautions on longer journeys to minimise risks. Meals and snacks had to be prepared in advance, makeshift screens for bathroom breaks and cans of gasoline needed to be packed because black travellers didn’t know how they would be received in a foreign environment. They might be received and never returned.
In 1936, The Negro Motorist Green Book was published by travel writer and postal employee, Victor Hugo Green, and his wife Alma Green. He had begun compiling his data from black-friendly motels, stores and petrol stations around his home area of New York City in the early 1930’s. The first 16-page guide was so popular that Green began expanding the coverage area and adding hotels and restaurants for subsequent editions. The guide was printed annually from 1936 to 1966. In the end it had grown to nearly 100 pages, offering advice to black tourists in Canada, Mexico, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean.
The Green Book was made out of necessity, and symbolised the determination to succeed in the Jim Crow era.
Today, we typically google locations and check reviews as we plan a trip. We sit in our cars and check ahead for the nearest restaurant, the next petrol station, or an available hotel room. In those times the Green Book offered the same types of information for travelling black Americans except that for them it was used for more than just convenience.
After almost ninety years from the first publishing, how are we doing today?
Tourism and working abroad has expanded immensely. It’s normal to fly to foreign destinations for business or leisure, but despite many changes in segregation laws, dark skinned people of all nations still face discrimination. Social bias and prejudice are still making things uncomfortable for black travellers of today. They are more likely to have to present their passports to authorities while out in public than other ethnicities. They may have their hair subjected to searches at airport security, or followed around by store staff when they are browsing in shops.
Despite the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ending many discriminatory practices, motorists in the United States are still fearful of racial profiling.
Like its predecessor, the modern-day equivalent of the Green Book, Black Twitter, uses Blacktags (hashtags related to black identity) to create elusive digital trails of information for its mostly black diaspora. It’s a community on X (formerly Twitter) to share not only meaningful travel information, but also serves as a social news and opinion aggregator for health, social justice issues, trends, and light humour among many other topics.
Inspired by The Negro Motorist Green Book, Greenbookglobal.com was created by its founder Lawrence (surname unknown), with black global travel in mind. The website allows users to read and write reviews on cities all over the world as well as book trips. You can also follow Green Book Global on Instagram.
If you are a light-skinned person, spare some thoughts for those travellers in the past the next time you hop into your car for a road trip and enjoy the freedom of being able to stop at a petrol station to use the bathroom – hassle free.
Although the black road travelled has come a long way it is still riddled with potholes.
Featured image by Freepik
