Fledgling 2024 marks 60 years since passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, legislation that outlawed discrimination in businesses and other public places.
So it’s astounding — and telling – that in the year recently ended, the NAACP issued a formal advisory against travel to Florida, which it said “has become hostile to Black Americans and in direct conflict with the democratic ideals that our nation was founded upon.”
Under the leadership of Gov. Ron DeSantis, said the advisory, Florida has engaged in “aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion” in the schools.
And, the notice continued, the state “is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals.”
The need for such a warning would severely disappoint the late Victor Hugo Green, a Black New York City mailman familiar with travel advisories.
In fact, he created one that appeared annually from 1936 to 1967,“The Negro Motorist Green-Book.”
In Jim Crow days when segregation was widely legal, Green heard from Black friends about indignities and embarrassments they suffered on road trips. So he created a list of places in every state where they would be treated with dignity.
Unlike the usual guidebooks, this one – which inspired an award-winning 2018 movie directed by Cumberland-raised Peter Farrelly – steered clear of rating food and amenities.
According to one admirer, “it didn’t tell you if a place had a good steak, or good sea food, or a soft bed… it told you where you would be safe; it told you where you’d be welcome and not made to go around to the kitchen and order something to go.”
Mining his connections within the Postal Service, Green and his wife, Alma, compiled a practical guide that even today exudes broad historical significance.
The National Park Service describes it as “an indelible part of African American history. The segregation and racism that made it necessary impacts all Americans… the Green Book has something to teach us all.”
One of those lessons is the pervasive nature of bigotry. The Green Book is said to have been modeled after the “Jewish Vacation Guide,” first printed in 1917 and which the Washington Post called “a vital tool in navigating the potential danger of Jewish travel in early America.”
The Post noted that while the Ku Klux Klan overwhelmingly targeted Black Americans, Jews also faced frequent mistreatment.
The Jewish newspaper Forward reported that according to an Anti-Defamation League study in the1950s, “virtually every state in the union was found guilty of discrimination, with the sunny state of Florida and the equally salubrious state of Arizona at the head of the list.”
Laws have certainly improved things, but as we see from the 2023 NAACP warning and rising anti-semitism in America, legislation alone can’t extinguish the persistent flame of hate.
As we approach February and Black History Month, it’s instructive to read what Victor Hugo Green wrote in the first edition of his travel book:
“There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal rights and privileges in the United States.”
That day seemed at hand 60 years ago, when legislative insistence on fair treatment reduced dependence on the Green Book. Within a few years it did indeed close up shop.
These many decades later, though, troubling events and attitudes affirm that we have yet to discover an antidote for human venom.
And so the Green Book endures as a portal to Black history – a “travel guide” whose value lies in reminding us, as we trek toward genuine acceptance, that a winding road still lies ahead.
Gerry Goldstein (gerryg76@verizon.net), a frequent contributor, is a retired Providence Journal editor and columnist.
