Origins
The Negro Motorist Green Book was an annual travel guide published by New York City mailman Victor Hugo Green, from 1936 until 1966, created to help Black American motorists navigate the dangers and indignities of Jim Crow segregation by listing hotels, restaurants, service stations, and other businesses known to welcome Black patrons. Crucial tools of Black travel, the Green Books empowered a growing African Americans to journey more safely by providing a community?sourced directory that literally pointed the way to hospitable accommodations. The Ohio State University’s Green Book Project digitizes these richly detailed guides and pairs them with interactive maps and visualizations, offering the public an engaging window into that history.
This project started with a working paper that examined the economic and spatial elements of racial inequality. However, the study quickly expanded into a larger initiative combining historical data with modern visualization techniques. Now, the Green Book Project continues this work, encouraging research across different fields that connects history with today’s world to help shape policies and improve our understanding.
LATEST RESEARCH
Competition and Consumer Discrimination
Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, many establishments legally discriminated again Black Americans, but at the same time other establishments ended their racially discriminatory practices during the 1950s. Looking at changes in the number of Black consumers to White consumers before the 1964 Civil Rights Act, they find that establishments open to everyone tend to appear in places with fewer competing businesses. In other words, when a few firms dominate the market, they use their monopoly power to serve more customers—but that monopoly power also gives them the power to charge higher prices since they have few competitors. In the end, while options were expanding for Black shoppers, they ended up paying higher prices in the places where they were allowed to shop.
Black-Friendly businesses in cities during the Civil Rights Era – Journal of Urban Economics
In the mid-twentieth century, America segregated African Americans and Whites by both law and practice. Victor Green created the Green Book to help Black people find establishments that would treat them with dignity. The Green Book expanded between 1939 and 1955 highlighting how Black-friendly businesses adapted to economic forces and growing demand in urban areas. However, the contraction of these establishments due to 1950s urban renewal projects and their concentration in redlined neighborhoods underscores the lasting impact of discriminatory policies on Black economic opportunity.
Redline Map of New York
Link to Data
The data for this research: View Data
The Evolution of Access to Public Accommodations in the United States – Quarterly Journal Of Economics
Analyzing Green Book establishments over time reveals the complex interplay between socio-economic conditions, discriminatory policies, and the limited reach of market forces. Although the number of Black residents grew in many cities, the number of Green Book businesses increased only slightly, indicating that demand alone did not drive expansion. Instead, broader patterns of segregation and exclusion persisted, reinforcing the structural barriers. The uneven growth of establishments, despite rising need, highlights why federal civil rights legislation was essential to guaranteeing equal access.
Map of Green Book Locations
Link to Data
The data for this research: View Data
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