The Negro Motorist Green Book Exhibition

The Negro Motorist Green Book, a new exhibition developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) in collaboration with award-winning author, photographer and cultural documentarian, Candacy Taylor will be on display in Holocaust Museum Houston’s Josef and Edith Mincberg Gallery Sept. 1 through Nov. 26, 2023. The Green Book provided critical, life-saving information on restaurants, gas stations, department stores and other businesses that welcomed African American travelers during an era of segregation and Jim Crow laws. The annual guide, created in 1936 by Harlem postman Victor Green, was published until 1967.
The exhibition, made possible through the support of ExxonMobil, will offer an immersive look at the reality of safe travel for African Americans during the mid-century, including artifacts like business signs and postcards to historic footage, images and firsthand accounts to convey the apprehension felt by Black travelers. The exhibit will also illustrate the resilience, innovation and elegance of families striving to live a full life in America and bring focus to a vibrant parallel world of African American businesses, the rise of Black leisure class and the important role The Green Book played in facilitating the second wave of the Great Migration.