About Comics proudly reprints several volumes of the famed Negro Motorist Green Book series. Victor H. Green started publishing these guides in 1936, allowing fellow African-Americans traveling the country the ability to locate hotels, restaurants, shops, and other conveniences that would accept their business during the decades of segregation. Today, these books serve as stark reminders of the day-to-day difficulties that Americans placed on their fellow Americans based solely on the color of their skin.
Currently available are facsimile editions of:
The Negro Motorist Green-Book, 1940: an example from early in the guide’s history, this volume shows what pre-World War II travel was like. In addition to the listings and advertisements are an article on traveling southward by the United States Travel Bureau’s Chas. A. R. McDowell and a guide to locating buildings by number in Manhattan. More…
The Negro Motorist Green Book, 1947: A look at the post-war era with all of the usual listings, sections on “Negro Schools & Colleges” and “Negro Newspapers”, some notes on “Green Book traveling”, and a guide to GM and Ford cars of the day (with photos!) More…
The Negro Travelers’ Green Book, 1954: taken from the middle of the guide’s run (the year that the Brown v. Board of Education decision took a key step towards desegregation), this volume includes travelogue articles on San Francisco and Bermuda. More…
The Green Book, 1962: A particularly thick example, with all of 128 pages of the original content including articles on having fun with international travel and on New York City. This is the first year that the Green Book listed Disneyland as an accessible location. More…
Travelers’ Green Book: International Edition 1963-1964: this volume from the end of the guide’s run, shortly before the end of Jim Crow’s law made the guide much less necessary, includes notes on international as well as domestic travel; a quick guide to the status of Jim Crow (abbreviated “jimcro”) laws in various states; and hotel/motel listings that include the Lorraine, the site of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. More…