'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 opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication for then we can go wherever we please, and without embarrassment. But until that time comes we shall continue to publish this information for your convenience each year.'
I suppose I should be pleased that such a thing is, in fact, no longer published in the US — but that's damning with faint praise.
‘The Negro Motorist Green Book’: An eye-opening look at ‘traveling while black’ in postwar America
For some fascinating insights into the second half (roughly) of the pitiable era known as “Jim Crow,” the Negro Motorist Green Book is a positive trove of information. It was founded in 1936 by an African-American employee of the U.S. Postal Service named Victor H. Green, who realized that with the new availability of automobiles to a rising African-American middle class, travelers of his race increasingly required a guide to navigate the infor…
I've encountered scholarship on this before and find the negotiation of traveling while black to be both fascinating and disturbing.