What does “the Green Book” mean?

The book that told you where you could stop.

Entry · catalog no. 1314

the Green Book

/ /ðə ˈɡɹin bʊk/ /thuh GREEN book

noun · Harlem-published, nationally used; the Jim Crow South and the de facto segregated North alike · 1930s

✓ Verified

The Negro Motorist Green Book and its successors: an annual directory of hotels, tourist homes, restaurants, barbershops, beauty parlors, gas stations, garages, and taverns that would serve Black travelers.

“He would not leave the driveway without the Green Book and a full tank, because between here and Birmingham there was nothing.”

By extension, any list of where it is safe to go.

“Every Black family on the road had a Green Book, whether or not it was the Green Book.”

Origin & Attribution

Harlem, 1936 and 1937, made by Victor Hugo Green, a Postal Service letter carrier, with his wife Alma Duke Green. It was sold by mail order, through Black-owned businesses, and through Esso stations, one of the few chains that franchised to Black owners. It was not a guide to Black-owned businesses and it was not a road-trip guide; it was a survival document mapping where a Black traveler could sleep, eat, use a restroom, and buy gas without being refused, humiliated, arrested, or worse. The title moved with the market — The Negro Motorist Green Book, then The Negro Travelers' Green Book by 1954, then Travelers' Green Book and its international editions, ending with the 1966–67 issue after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made its premise legally, if not practically, obsolete. The 2018 film that took the name is about a white driver; it should not be allowed to define the term. The Green Book was Black-authored, Black-distributed, and Black-advertised, and its whole existence is an account of what Black mobility cost.

1937

Earliest surviving edition, carrying New York and New Jersey advertisements and calling itself the premier issue

1960

Victor H. Green dies; Alma Green continues as publisher and editor

1966

The final edition, Travelers' Green Book: 1966–67 International Edition, is published

Region of origin

West

Midwest

N.East

South

Nationwide / diaspora

Harlem-published, nationally used; the Jim Crow South and the de facto segregated North alike · 1930s

Spoken by

Black motorists and their families, and the Black business owners whose listings made the network work

$THEGREThe Record · cultural traction

▲ Enduring

89 yrs

ahead of the mainstream

69/100

peak cultural energy

Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.

Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest

First used

1937

in the culture

Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.

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Memphis, TN

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Citations & Sources

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Victor H. Green — The Negro Motorist Green Book: 1937 — annual directory, New York · 1937

Held and digitized by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library; the publisher's note calls it the premier issue

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Victor H. Green & Co. — Travelers' Green Book: 1966–67 International Edition — annual directory · 1966

Subtitled For Vacation Without Aggravation; the final edition, NYPL Digital Collections

■

Candacy A. Taylor — Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America — book, Abrams Press · 7 Jan 2020

The standing history of the guide and the network it mapped

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