The Green Book

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-route-66-20160516-snap-story.html

Lily Ho holding a picture of the Hayes Motel (1947)
Los Angeles, California
Photograph by Brian van der Brug/ Los Angeles Times
latimes.com

Hello Everyone:

It is Monday, the start of a busy week in the blogosphere. Tomorrow is game day-the June 7 primary-Blogger's turn to cast her vote.  There will be two posts dedicated to the occasion.  However, for today, we have a fascinating subject for discussion-a guidebook for African Americans to hotels along segregation-era Route 66.  Louis Sahagun's recent Los Angeles Times article "This guidebook helped African Americans find a hotel along segregation-era Route 66," is the story of the Negro Motorist Green Book.  The guidebook was a necessary travel companion for African American travelers along the famed Route 66 in search of hospitable lodgings and businesses.

Cover for The Negro Motorist Green-Book
en.wikipedia.org

One of those hospitable lodgings was the Hayes Motel in south Downtown Los Angeles.  The photograph, above left, is from its 1947 glory days.  In its time, the Hayes Motel was a sleek modern place to stay.  There was a sign posted outside the building, No Prostitution, No loitering, No Trespassing.  The current owner, Lily Ho, told Mr. Sahagun,

The original owner was very proud of this place

The original owner would cringe if he or she the peeling paint of the motel "...in a distressed neighborhood at the corner of Wadsworth Avenue and Jefferson Boulevard."  It might in a deshabille state today but it was a valuable part of Los Angeles history that has been listed on the inventory of the city's historic resources.

Louis Sahagun writes, "In particular the Hayes was a refuge for African American travelers who made their way west on the legendary cross-country U.S. Route 66, guided by a rich and illuminating travel publication know as the Negro Motorist Green Book."  The motel was part of 224 Los Angeles lodgings and business  considered friendly to African American traveling long American highways.

Clifton's Cafeteria Brooksdale exterior, c.1938
Whittington Photography Collection
USC Digital Library
la.curbed.com

The inventory of segregation-era historic resources is being put together by the Getty Conservation Institute and will help lay the foundation for "...rehabilitation and protection of significant historic structures."  Fortunately some of the Green Book stops are still standing and (cross your fingers) could be landmarked as Historic-Cultural Monuments.  Ken Bernstein, the principal planner for the Los Angeles Department of City Planning's Office Historic Resources, told Mr. Sahagun,

At the very least, these sites can be incorporated into city's online inventory...They are part of the story of African Americans in Los Angeles, and the story of Los Angeles itself writ large

The Green Book was assembled by Victor H. Green, a postal worker from Harlem, New York, in 1936 as a helpful way for African Americans to avoid, as called it, embarrassing moments once travelers started exploring the interstate roadways including Route 66. Although most of 224 Los Angeles sites have been either repurposed or demolished.  Good news, 56 of these resources remain such as: Clifton's Cafeteria, the Biltmore and Dunbar Hotel which hosted Lena Horne, Joe Louis, Duke Ellington Louis Armstrong, and other luminaries when they visited Los Angeles because white hotels would not host them.

The New Aster Motel
Los Angeles, California
abc.ca

   There were a plethora of lesser known places, including the Hayes; the Aster Motel, a modest wood-framed house on South New Hampshire, listed in the guidebook as the home of "Mrs. J.O. Banks."

The Green Books are a rarity these but they are than just evidence of the dangers of travel faced by African Americans in Los Angeles before the enactment of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.  In the age of Black Live Matter and social media, academics and historian use the the Green Books as research guides across the nation as a way to better understand the African American experience and build a national parks system that reflects the broad diversity of American culture and history.  The largest collection of Green Books is housed at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York City Library (http://www.nypl.org).  Twenty-three issues published between 1937 and 1966.  Mr. Sahagun reports, "High definition images of the books are offered on a center website."  Last year, a copy of the 1941 edition sold at auction for $22,000 at the Smithsonian Institute.

Biltmore Hotel, 1927
Los Angeles, California
martinturnbull.com

Frank Norris, a historian with the National Park Service which manages the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program, enthused,

It's almost a miracle that there is such a diverse physical legacy of Green Book properties...I expect to see a number of these structures nominated to the National Register of Historic Places.

They are reminders of a hidden part of African American history of the the great American road trip.  Victor Green created the travel guide because he was aware of the potential trouble ahead for African American after Route 66 was opened in 1926.  The famous transcontinental highway stretched 2, 448 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles, crossing eight states, three time zones, dozens of "sundown towns" where segregation was vigorously enforced with laws, threats, and violence.

Map of Route 66
nps.gov

Travelers along Route 66 would typically travel east to west: passing the rolling Midwestern wheat field, the mighty Mississippi River, Missouri's Ozark Mountains and the Texas Panhandle, across the glorious New Mexico and Arizona deserts, the Colorado River, west to the fabled sandy shores of Southern California.  Route 66 was also the path taken by the fictional Joad family, fleeing the Oklahoma Dust Bowl in John Steinbeck's 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath,  In the forties, it carried convoys of troops on the way to desert training camps.  The highway entered into popular culture with a eponymous television.  It also inspired the late Nat King Cole and the Rolling Stones to record the song Route 66, which became part of the American song lexicon:

Won't you get hip to this timely tip.
When you make that California trip.
Get your kicks on Route 66.

Route 66 Southern California leg
historic66.com

Louis Sahagun reports, "Richard Mitchell paid less than a buck for the Green Book he ordered by U.S. Mail after noticing an advertisement for one in a 1963 edition of Ebony Magazine." Mr. Mitchell was an Air Force cryptographer in Turkey, near the end of his tour of duty; wanted plan a road trip for himself and his family.  Mr. Mitchell told Mr. Sahagun,

We left home in Pennsylvania in a two-tone 1960 Dodge Dart station wagon...I time my travel to make sure we would roll into a safe place to stay by night...We only had one problem along he way...A bunch of young folks hurled a racial epithet at a hamburger stand.

Once in Los Angeles, African Americans would not be allowed to buy home in "...so-called red-lined neighborhoods."  Some street corners actually posted signs that said "No Negros or Orientals Desired."  In movie theaters, Caucasians and African Americans were separated by a velvet rope.  To add further insult, in some department stores, African American women were handed tissue paper before they tried on hats.

Route 66 was decommissioned in 1985, replaced by superhighways that bypassed all the really cool and kitschy places that made the transcontinental road a guide book to the Western United States, for mostly Caucasian travelers.  Candacy Taylor is documenting the travel along Route 66 with photographs taken from Green Books sites.