CINCINNATI — In the early 1900s, a travel guide was published that some people say was lifesaving for African Americans.
The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is opening an exhibit on Saturday highlighting the guide, its impact and more.
In 1936, Victor Hugo Green published The Green Book, a guide that helped African Americans travel safely during segregated areas in the middle of the 20th century.
“In the era of Jim Crow and ‘sundown towns,’ (places where African Americans were not allowed after sundown) the knowledge of these businesses was not just helpful, it could be lifesaving,” the National Underground Freedom Center said in a press release.
The Green Book included several locations that Black travelers could safely visit. These locations included the following:
- Restaurants
- Hotels
- Gas stations
- Department stores
Initially, Green only focused on New York City, where he was born, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Eventually, he included other cities and states due to the guide’s popularity.
The annual guide was published and distributed throughout the nation until 1967 — approximately 31 years.
“We’re excited to share the story of The Green Book with our community. It’s a story that transcends history because its legacy, and those who lived it, are still with us,” Woodrow Keown, Jr., president and COO of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, said. “The Green Book is a light in a dark period in American history. It showed, as the Underground Railroad did a century earlier, that African Americans would not be denied their freedom and were prepared to prevail over the systems designed to oppress them.”
The new exhibit at the Freedom Center — developed by The Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service — is called “The Negro Motorist Green Book.”
“The exhibition brings into focus a vibrant parallel world of African American businesses, the rise of the Black leisure class and the important role The Green Book played in facilitating the second wave of the Great Migration, empowering African Americans to escape the hostility of the South and pursue their American Dream,” the National Underground Freedom Center said in a press release.
According to the Freedom Center, the exhibit will have business signs, footage, images and more artifacts from the Smithsonian in the exhibit “to convey the apprehension felt by African American travelers and to celebrate the resilience, innovation and elegance of people choosing to live a full American existence.”
The exhibit will be open until Oct. 13 and is included with admission. The Freedom Center said visitors can also “experience the exhibit” with Candacy Taylor, author of The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America, at 11 a.m. Saturday.
The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, located at 50 E Freedom Way, is open Sunday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Visitors must enter before 4:30 p.m.
The price of general admission tickets are:
- $16.50 for adults
- $14 for individuals 60 years and older
- $11.50 for children three to 12 years old
- Free for kids under three years old
Click here for more ticket information.
To learn more about the Freedom Center, click here.
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