"Green-Book"

This travel guide used by African Americans and was published annually between

1936-1966.Many African-Americans took to driving,in part because of a growing middle class and in part to be free of discomfort,discrimination,segregation and insult during recreational travel.This  guide helped the travelers find hotels,restaurants,restrooms, gas stations and repair shops to patronize.Prior to 1936 this information was gotten through word of mouth.Many travelers still carried their own food and kept a bucket in the car trunk as a portable toilet.The guide warned travelers of the nearly 10,000 "sundown towns" where nonwhites had to leave the city limits by dusk,or they could be picked up by the police or worse.Known as the Green Book,the guide was for the entire,U.S.A., not just the South and published until shortly after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which outlawed the types of racial discrimination that had made the book necessary.