Green Book gets Oscar gold African-American letter carrier created the book that helped inspire the movie

n Feb. 24, actress Julia Roberts announced to the world that “Green Book” Owas the winner of the 2019 Oscar for Best Picture. The movie tells the story of a black musician and his white driver who travel through the segregated South, based on the true tale of Don Shirley, a Jamaican-American pianist. What makes the movie noteworthy for letter carriers is that the Green Book would not exist without another true story, that of the late Victor Hugo Green, a 39-year letter carrier, an NALC member and the creator many years ago of the travel guide known as the Green Book. Here is his story.

he 1940s and ’50s are remem- knowing where you could stop, where bered as the birth of the great you could eat, where you could stay. American road trip. President An entrepreneurial letter carrier T Dwight Eisenhower cham- from New York City’s neigh- pioned the creation of a system of borhood saw a need and created The interstate highways that crisscrossed Negro Motorist Green Book—com- the nation, fueling the construction monly referred to as simply the “Green of service stations, roadside diners Book”—a travel guide for black- and and . The growing middle white-owned hotels, inns and even class was getting out and seeing the private residences that would accept United States. African-American travelers. He used But that was also still the time his NALC and other postal contacts to of in the South and find the listings all across the country. racial discrimination in other For example, in 1949 for Montgomery, parts of the country. The laws and AL, the guidebook recommended the practices were designed to keep Douglas Hotel and Bonnie’s Restau- African-Americans from voting rant as safe places. In 1956, travelers or even patronizing businesses, to Hartford, CT, could stay at Mrs. including many restaurants and Johnson’s house at 2016 Main St. hotels. Some towns had what were The guide was the creation of Victor known as “sundown” rules, mean- Hugo Green, a native of New York. In ing African-Americans had to be 1913, at the age of 21, Green was living out of town by sunset, or else. in Hackensack, NJ, and went to work at For many, traveling wasn’t the local post office as a letter carrier. an adventure to be filled simply With schooling that extended only Victor H. Green as pictured in the Spring with awe and pleasure, but also with through seventh grade, Green—as did 1956 edition of the Green Book embarrassment and fear. Imagine not many African-Americans—found a

22 The Postal Record April 2019 The 1940, Spring 1956 and 1949 editions

managing Duke, Green heard many stories of humilia- tion and violence from members of his community. He looked to other travel guides for inspiration on creat- ing a tool for helping African-Americans. “The Jewish press has long published information about places that are good, dependable, federal job with the restricted and there Post Office Department, even if the pay are numerous publications that give was low (see NALC’s history book Car- the gentile whites all kinds of informa- riers in a Common Cause for more on tion,” he wrote in his introduction to letter carriers’ experiences at the time). the 1949 edition, recounting why he Green also joined NALC’s Hackensack had created the guide. Branch 425, now known as Bergen The idea crystalized in his mind in County Merged. By 1933, he continued 1932 and would see its first edition his route in New Jersey but had moved printed in 1936, covering just New York to Harlem, just over the George Wash- City. The demand was so great that the ington Bridge. following year it became a national There the was guide, and eventually expanded with still in swing, rich with culture, music international listings. To this day, peo- and art, when important writers and ple who used the guide speak about its social activists including W. E. B. Du importance in providing information Bois and Langston Hughes were at- and reassurance to African-Americans tempting to redefine what it meant to far from home. be a black American, creating a new “It didn’t matter where you went, Jim racial pride. Green must have been at- Crow was everywhere then, and black tracted to this new spirit, as by 1933 he travelers needed this badly,” Julian Bond was managing musician Robert Duke, said in a 2010 interview when he was his brother-in-law. president of the National Association Green was described as a man of for the Advancement of Colored People “tremendous drive and energy” by (NAACP). “It was a guidebook that told Novera Dashiell, an assistant editor, in you not where the best places were to the 1956 guide: “Tall, well-built, always eat, but where there was any place.” impeccably groomed, with an easy Bond spoke from personal experi- affable manner.” People who knew ence. “My family had a Green Book him said that whenever he was out and when I was young, and used it to travel about, he always dressed fashionably in the South to find out where we could and would change into his uniform stop to eat, where we could spend the only once he got to work. night in a hotel or someone’s home,” he As a union member and a civic lead- said. “I always thought it was called the er, and perhaps because of his work Green Book because it was green.”

April 2019 The Postal Record 23 “The Green Book was, I think, “To live in a country where we’re not an institution in black life,” hardly welcomed anywhere and where Ernest Green, no relation, said our money is no good and our dignity in a 2011 interview. “It was one is trampled on daily says a lot about us of those unknown survival tools as a people and not giving up our right for black people that had to move for full citizenship.” around the country.” While the book’s main goal was to Ernest Green was one of the offer protection and reassurance, it Little Rock Nine, a group who resembled, and offered the services became the first African-American of, a travel guide. (In St. George’s, students at Central High School. , for example, the 1949 guide He remembers his family using suggested renting bicycles from Dowl- the book to travel from Arkansas ing’s Cycle Livery on York Street.) to Virginia in the 1950s. “I knew In 1947, Green expanded the book to the Green Book was a necessity for include a vacation reservation service, us to have a place to stay.” to help travelers make advance plans. The guide was especially And by 1952, as the book had broad- The Hotel Clark in Memphis, TN, in 1939 popular with African-Americans ened its scope from mainly hotel and specialized in lodging for “Colored only.” who traveled frequently for work, restaurant listings to include barbers, such as jazz musicians and ballplay- beauty salons, bars and nightclubs, ers in the Negro leagues. The Negro it was renamed The Negro Travelers’ Leagues Baseball Museum has a copy Green Book. of a Green Book that belonged to the “White barbers would not cut black legendary Buck O’Neil—a player, scout people’s hair. White beauty parlors and manager for the Kansas City Mon- would not take black women as cus- archs and a member of the Baseball tomers,” Bond explained of the need Hall of Fame. for expanded listings. “You needed the Victor Green set up extensive con- Green Book to tell you where you can tacts to get his information, including go without having doors slammed in using his NALC connections. “There your face.” are postal workers everywhere,” Bond Victor Green believed that the explained. “And he used them as entrepreneurial spirit that propelled guides to tell him: ‘Well, here’s a good his guide could be a driving force place here, a good place there.’ ” for advancing the black community, Green’s most important partner- especially through the expanding use ship was with the (now Exxon) of advertising that marked the late gasoline station chain. Esso, a subsid- 1950s and early 1960s while he was iary of Standard Oil, was progressive still alive. “If Negro-owned business for its time, selling franchises to and is good, it can be better with advertis- employing African-Americans in its ing,” Assistant Editor Dashiell quoted corporate offices. Esso sold the guides him as saying in the 1956 edition. She in its service stations and advertised in explained, “His philosophy is that we the guide’s pages, along with helping can create our OWN ‘name brands.’” Green finance the publication. He encouraged youngsters to enter People in Harlem and the broader the advertising field and noted to his African-American community knew readers that white-owned businesses the importance of what Green had cre- had seen the power of advertising in ated, and some supported it financial- the guide and “have come to value and ly. Author Langston Hughes took out desire your patronage.” an ad in the 1947 edition proclaiming, Green worked on the annual guides

24 The Postal Record April 2019 while continuing to deliver the mail, though records suggest he didn’t profit much from the guides. In 1940, he reported his income as $2,100, which was the average pay for a letter carrier at the time. By 1942, he had a route in Leonia, NJ, where he worked until 1952, when after 39 years of carrying the mail, he retired at age 60. With help, he con- tinued publishing some 15,000 guides annually until his death in 1960. The guide remained in publication by oth- ers, with the 1959 guide listing his wife, Alma, as the editor and publisher, and the 1966 edition lists two publishers of Green’s relatives—and who weren’t related to Green. A printer have yet to find any who printed the Green Book said that documentation on the a daughter of Victor’s brought him the daughter mentioned by master pages of the last several guides, the printer. until about 1966, after the passage of But for the tens of the 1964 Civil Rights Act had made dis- thousands of travelers crimination by businesses illegal. who used the guides In the more than 60 years since the during the three passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Green decades they were Book had largely been forgotten except in circulation, their by older generations whose families importance was known may have used the guides. But interest firsthand. They were in the guide has seen a resurgence. The truly a roadmap for New York Public Library recently created friendly faces in hostile a digital library of the guides allowing territory. historians and researchers to make use It’s likely that Green of the data. would not be too For example, early editions of the upset about his guide Green Book reveal that most of the being relegated to his- listings where African-Americans were tory books. He often welcomed in New York City were in Har- said that he looked lem. Over the course of the guidebook’s forward to the time run, hotels in started to be when the Green Book listed as well, documenting the spread would no longer be of the rejection of segregation. necessary. As interest in the Green Book has “There will be a grown, stories incorporating the publi- day sometime in the cation have been made into illustrated near future when this guide will not Listings from the 1949 edition of the books for children, plays and even have to be published,” he wrote in Green Book and the cover from the 1959 edition. documentary and fictional films. 1949. “That is when we as a race will Not much is known about Green, have equal opportunities and privi- the man, other than what was writ- leges in the United States. It will be a ten about him in his guides and the great day for us to suspend this publi- historical facts NALC was able to track cation for then we can go wherever we down. We were not able to locate any please.” PR

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