This is a stunning week for films called Green Book. One is the winner of the best picture Oscar and several other awards Sunday night. The other is The Green Book: Guide to Freedom, a documentary about the series of books published annually by Harlem postal carrier Victor H. Green between 1936 and 1966. (The Oscar-winning movie is primarily about the relationship between a celebrated black pianist and his white driver on a trip through the South, during which they use the book as a reference.) Those books, called The Negro Motorist Green Book, which the documentary calls "part travel guide and part survival guide," offered listings of hotels, restaurants, gas stations, and other businesses, many black-owned, that black travelers could use in the segregated South as well as features about car travel, new car models and more.
Directed and written by Yoruba Richen (The New Black), the documentary is airing this week on the Smithsonian Channel. It includes archival material such as home movies from black families who relied on The Negro Motorist Green Book for planning travel as well as commentary about the era from travelers. The documentary also provides a context for the series--and why it was so important in the Jim Crow era.
In recent years, About Comics published several facsimile versions of The Negro Motorist Green Book, and last month it issued The Negro Motorist Green Book Compendium ($19.99, 9781949996067), which collects the full 1938, 1947, 1954 and 1963 editions and includes a preface by Nat Gertler, founder and publisher of About Comics.