Green Books

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One of the best known solutions to the problems facing the Black traveler are the Green Books, a set of travel guides issued nearly yearly from 1938 to 1967 by Harlem’s own Victor Green. While the guides enjoyed national distribution, helping travelers navigate segregated spaces and racist “sundown towns,” the largest number of Green Book sites were right here in Harlem, suggesting services for Black visitors, from diners to tailors. Though reports have up to a million copies distributed some years, fewer than three dozen copies of the Green Book remain known today. The Schomburg Center retains the world’s largest collection of Green Books, with one of its few missing volumes added last year.