Richard Mitchell, 84, of Albuquerque in 2016. Mitchell used the Green Book to drive across the United States in 1964. The travel guide “guaranteed protection for black travelers.”
(Photo by Craig Fritz / For The Times
)
Forty-four of the 89 counties along Route 66 were sundown towns, communities where blacks were encouraged to leave before dark. but. Restaurants, motels, and gas stations along Route 66 routinely denied service to black travelers. In 1936, a Harlem postal worker named Victor Green began publishing the Black Motorist Green Booka guide to hotels, restaurants, and gas stations along the route that would serve black travelers. During the guide's run, more than 1,400 tourist houses (private residences that welcomed guests when hotels did not) were listed.
For black families on Route 66, the Green Book was as essential as a spare tire. In Tulsa, the Greenwood district was once known as “black wall street.” White thugs destroyed it in the 1921 race massacre. The community was rebuilt and became a center of black trade near the route. Springfield, Illinois, was one of the first cities on Route 66 to offer service to black travelers. It was also the site of the 1908 race riot, which helped spur the founding of the NAACP.
An old photo of the Hayes Motel in Los Angeles. It appeared in the Green Book, which listed places that served African Americans during the segregation era.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
See what's left today: Only about 30% of the Green Book sites along Route 66 remain standing. The DuBeau in Flagstaff, Arizona, which was once listed in the Green Book, is now operated as a motel. He Clifton's recently closed in downtown Los Angeles it is located at 7th and Broadway, the original terminus of Route 66. Route History Museum Springfield is home to the country's only museum dedicated to the black experience on Route 66, located in a 1930s Texaco station one block from the highway. Offers a virtual reality experience that takes visitors through Illinois Green Book cities, including sunset cities.
Beyond the Green Book, other businesses worth a visit include Threatt Filling Station in Oklahoma, a black-owned gas station (and safe haven for black travelers) during the era of segregation, and the neon sign for Graham's Rib Station, a beloved black-owned restaurant for many years. It is located in the local History Museum on the square in Springfield, Missouri.
