Thanks, Jon! Marvelous source, hadn't known of it.
For Farmville, I see a place to eat, a place to stay, and a place to get a tire
changed. Clark's place--that's Stanley Clark, whose widowed mother-in law, a
former teacher in Richmond (from very early on), moved to Prince Edward to live
with her married daughter, and there she spearheaded an struggle by a group of
black women to obtain a high school for black children . . .
Peter Wallenstein
Quoting Jon Kukla <[log in to unmask]>:
> A few days ago The New York Times ran an article about Victor H.
> Green's guides for African-American travelers during the Jim Crow era -
> (excerpt below from History News Network). Curious about its listings, I
> found a pdf. of the 1949 edition on-line that may interest others on
> VA-HIST. Some Virginia entries are on pp 70-73.
> http://www.autolife.umd.umich.edu/Race/R_Casestudy/Negro_motorist_green_bk.htm
> -jk
>
> The Open Road Wasn’t Quite Open to
> All<http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/130611.html>
>
> Source: *NYT*
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/books/23green.html?hpw>(8-22-10)
>
> For almost three decades beginning in 1936, many African-American travelers
> relied on a booklet to help them decide where they could comfortably eat,
> sleep, buy gas, find a tailor or beauty parlor, shop on a honeymoon to
> Niagara Falls, or go out at night. In 1949, when the guide was 80 pages,
> there were five recommended hotels in Atlanta. In Cheyenne, Wyo., the
> Barbeque Inn was the place to stay.
>
> A Harlem postal employee and civic leader named Victor H. Green conceived
> the guide in response to one too many accounts of humiliation or violence
> where discrimination continued to hold strong. These were facts of life not
> only in the Jim Crow South, but in all parts of the country, where black
> travelers never knew where they would be welcome. Over time its full title —
> “The Negro Motorist Green Book: An International Travel Guide” — became
> abbreviated, simply, as the “Green Book.” Those who needed to know about it
> knew about it. To much of the rest of America it was invisible, and by 1964,
> when the last edition was published, it slipped through the cracks into
> history.
>
> Until he met a friend’s elderly father-in-law at a funeral a few years ago,
> the Atlanta writer Calvin Alexander Ramsey had never heard of the guide. But
> he knew firsthand the reason it existed. During his family trips between
> Roxboro, N.C., and Baltimore, “we packed a big lunch so my parents didn’t
> have to worry about having to stop somewhere that might not serve us,”
> recalled Mr. Ramsey, who is now 60....
>
>
>
> Jon Kukla
> www.JonKukla.com
>
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