1948
The band loads the car after the last set. Next stop is a thousand miles off, and on the dash is the one book that says where they can eat, sleep and buy gas.
From the 1948 masthead: advertising office, 200 West 135th St., Room 215-A, New York City. Publication office, Leonia, N.J.
Drag to look around. The Green Book is on the dash, to your right. Pick it up. The radio works too.
On the way
That's the title of an essay in the 1948 Green Book by James A. Jackson, "Special Representative of the Esso Marketers." A Black traveler, he wrote, "needs to know where to lay a weary head when nightfall comes." Esso's Black public relations men had used the Green Book "for all the years of its existence," and the company helped it reach more readers. The essay is also Esso's own marketing, printed inside the guide.
1948 edition, page 10.
Pulling up
Listed in the 1948 Green Book under Denver taverns, page 17. The room is a first reconstruction, built from 1948 photographs in its National Register file; it marks what is sourced and what is our guess.
Walk into the lounge