There were a lot of female-identified, like Phillis Wheatley, hotels that were in the Green Book. There were all these beauty salons in the Green Book.

People who didn’t maybe have much money could rent very cheaply a room and get a warm meal. It wasn’t just people who were on vacation that were using the Green Book. They were among the first AirBnbs, where widowed women, generally, would open up their homes if they had an extra bed and allow people to stay, especially migrant people who were leaving the South and fleeing racial terror. So there’s that.Īnd then there were so many female-owned businesses that were celebrated in the Green Book, like tourist homes. So in ’59, the whole entire green book, the masthead, is all women, and she’s listed as the publisher and the editor, and all the other people listed in the masthead-except for one who has initials and we don’t know the gender of that person-but everybody else listed is female. And the year before he died, Alma Duke Green, his wife, took over the entire Green Book, which is again why she was such a critical force and I don’t think he could have done it without her, because he worked full time as a postal worker and she was also working on the guide. Victor Green, the creator of the Green Book, dies in 1960, so he never lives to see the passage of the Civil Rights Act in ’64. Candacy Taylor: Yeah, I’ve actually dedicated a whole chapter of my book to women in the Green Book and the role that they played.

Candacy taylor green book