Author, photographer and cultural documentarian Candacy Taylor opened the Morning Forum’s 74th season on Sept. 17 with a riveting description of the subject of her award-winning book, “The Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America.”
Although she had multiple degrees in art, Taylor found that she couldn’t “find meaningful work.” The missing component, she said, was connecting with people and culture. She discovered that photography provided that connection and documenting culture and the past led her on a forward path. After writing books about beauty shop culture and waitressing, Taylor was hired to write about Route 66. Fortunately while researching the history of Route 66, she found tucked away in a corner of a museum a copy of “The Green Book, the Black Travel Guide.” This discovery led her on a 10-year quest to complete what she refers to as a “labor of love.”
Before Taylor began her book, her stepfather described to her how when he was 7 years old, his father took his wife and son on a vacation in his car. Typical of the South during the 1950s, a policeman stopped him and asked whose car he was driving. Knowing that a white policeman wouldn’t believe that a Black man could own such a fine car, he said it was his employer’s car and brought out a chauffeur’s hat which he kept in the back for such occasions.
Her stepfather’s death shortly after she began researching the green book inspired Taylor to use his story to open the book to show how many Black families faced humiliating challenges when they traveled during the Jim Crow era.
“The Green Book,” Taylor explained, was born in Harlem when Victor Green, a postal worker, heard about a travel book written for Jews who wanted to know where they could find hotels and restaurants that didn’t have “gentile only” policies.
The first edition of the book came out in 1936 covering just the New York area – even Harlem was segregated at the time – but by the 1940s the book covered all 50 states.
By listing hotels, restaurants, gas stations and many other businesses which would serve Black travelers, the book spared African Americans the humiliation of being turned down by half-full motels, empty restaurants, and even banks and pharmacies. Even if gas stations allowed them to buy gas, they were rarely allowed to use the facilities. Black postal workers throughout the country helped Green compile the lists of Black-friendly businesses.
“The Green Book” became what Taylor described as “The Black Yellow Pages,” and helped publicize the many Black businesses that sprang up during the Jim Crow decades. While spending over seven years cataloging more than 10,000 Green Book sites, Taylor also became aware of the widespread existence during the Jim Crow era of Sundown towns, communities that forbid Blacks from being in town after sunset. Those who failed to leave in time risked jail time, beatings, or often lynching. These communities were prominent in the Midwest and the West. In California alone, Taylor said, cities as varied as Mill Valley, Fremont, Santa Cruz and even Palo Alto and East Palo Alto posted Sundown signs. The preponderance of these cities made travel especially dangerous to Black travelers.
Recognizing the need to pre-plan their journeys, Green established a travel agency to help Black travelers plan safe trips and identify which national parks and beaches were open to them. Taylor explained that even the ocean was segregated so that it was risky for Black swimmers to cross over into “white only” waters.
“The Green Book” ceased publication in 1967, three years after the passing of The Civil Rights Act made it no longer necessary.
Taylor ended her talk describing an event she remembered from a trip she took with her mother when she was 7 years old. “We passed a chain gang but my mother couldn’t explain to me why the prisoners were all Black.” Then Taylor added, “Justice is not always linear. We should be farther along than we are.”
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