The Negro Travelers' Green Book, 1955

Victor H. Green was a Harlem postal worker when he began publishing the Green Book in 1936, and he kept it going into the mid-1960s. This 1955 edition runs 84 pages: an editor's letter, advertising, and listings by state and town of the hotels, tourist homes, restaurants, garages and beauty parlors that would serve Black travelers in the segregated United States. White drivers never had to look up where they could sleep that night without being turned away. The editor's letter at the front talks about warm weather, the open road and the automobile, in the same easy tone as any vacation guide. The cover urges readers to carry the book with them because they may need it. This volume is a Commons scan, so the whole book can be read, advertising included.