The Green Book

During the Jim Crow era in the United States, it was neither easy nor safe for African-Americans to travel from town to town. For three decades, The Negro Motorist Green Book: An International Travel Guide was an indispensable resource for finding a place to stay, eat, or buy gas in towns across America. Not necessarily the best places, but any place that would provide accommodations at all if you weren't white.
A Harlem postal employee and civic leader named Victor H. Green conceived the guide in response to one too many accounts of humiliation or violence where discrimination continued to hold strong. These were facts of life not only in the Jim Crow South, but in all parts of the country, where black travelers never knew where they would be welcome. Over time its full title — “The Negro Motorist Green Book: An International Travel Guide” — became abbreviated, simply, as the “Green Book.” Those who needed to know about it knew about it. To much of the rest of America it was invisible, and by 1964, when the last edition was published, it slipped through the cracks into history.

The Green Book has been revived in a way, as a new play and a children's book about the travel guide and those who used it are set to debut. Link -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Erik S. Lesser/The New York Times)

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I was watching "Driving Miss Daisy" last night, and recalled the sceen where Morgan Freeman's character has to stop on the side of the road to use the bathroom dispite several stops for gas.

Of course, the reason is that he was not allowed to use the bathrooms at the gas stations.
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Hey, gays in America can travel. I have many gay friends and have never once heard them complain about difficulty travelling. What they DO like is to find gay-friendly places so that they don't have to check their behavior. And there are plenty of places like that, don't worry.

Now, if they decide to vacation in saudi arabia, that's a whole different matter...
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Alice, abc is just pointing out that the two are completely separate. Consider the amount of information that you can find online for any type of travel - not just for the gay community. Also, it's easier for gay people to blend in with straight people than it was for black people to blend in with white people, especially in the "Jim Crow" era. Not saying that gay people should *have* to blend in, but it's possible to fake it if your life's in danger.

The idea of a play and children's book seems absurd, but why not? Maybe a musical.
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No drama. It's honestly true. Heck, you can search for LGBT friendly places on sites like Orbitz or Travelocity. It just happens to be a real issue.

Makes me glad I'm straight and don't have to worry about it when I travel.
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